












r 








SHORT STORY WRITING 
FOR PROFIT 



















SHORT STORY 
WRITING 

for 

PROFIT 

by J 

MICHAEL JOSEPH 

W^ith a Foreword by 

STACY AUMONIER 



BOSTON: 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 




.3 

\ 

Copyright, 1924 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(Incorporated) v 



<» 


Printed in the United States of America 


THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY 
THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 


BUY 21W 


a 


©(^ 793338 ^ 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER *ACI 



Foreword: Stacy Aumonier 


. 


vii 


Introductory Note 


. 


xiii 

I. 

The Magazine Story . 


. 


3 

II. 

Plot. 


. 


19 

III. 

The Composition of the Short Story: 




(1) The Opening 


• 


40 


(2) The Body of the Story 


. 


61 


(3) The Climax 


. 


81 

IV. 

Character .... 


• 


97 

V. 

Dialogue .... 


. 


112 

VI. 

Style . 




126 

VII. 

Local Color and some Types 
Story . 

OF 

Short 

135 

VIII. 

A Short Story Analyzed . 


. . 


153 

IX. 

The Commercial Side . 


. 


169 





FOREWORD 


To talk shop is a justifiable and lovable trait in human 
nature. 

I have often noticed that when authors break loose, 
that is to say when they escape from their colleagues, and 
flash their personalities at dinner parties and tea-fights, 
they invariably talk about Smollett and Fielding, Freud 
and Froissart, and art, and art, and Art. But when they 
are together, with no visitors present, they talk about con¬ 
tracts and agents, and the best way to squeeze a bit more out 
of editors and publishers. All of which is very nice and as 
it should be. 

It is pleasant, therefore, to be associated with a book that 
is frankly designed to appeal to the young literary aspirant 
about to open his shop. It is an exciting moment. What 
goods shall I sell? How shall I dress the window? Shall 
I keep a cash register or a clerk? What is the best way to 
get customers? 

It is specially pleasant to discuss the questions affecting 
the short story shop, because the art of writing short 
stories is probably the only art in which the demand is far 
greater than the supply. This does not mean that editors 
do not have sufficient stories submitted to them. They are 
deluged. But unfortunately barely one-tenth of that deluge 
is in any way worth serious consideration. I suspect that 
Michael Joseph’s motive in writing this admirable and help¬ 
ful book is to raise the percentage from ten to say twenty- 
five per cent. It can be done, and may serve a very useful 
vii 


Foreword 


purpose. Mr. Joseph has had a wide experience and a very 
special insight into both the artistic and commercial aspect 
of the short story. He has made a careful study of authors, 
of plots, themes and construction, and editors’ whimsies. 
He has put the working mind of the short story writer in a 
crucible, and has set down the record of his analysis for the 
benefit of all who may desire to have it. Beyond this, 
however, I am quite sure that he is not sufficiently sanguine 
for a moment to imagine that the study and close applica¬ 
tion to the tenets laid down in his book are going to pro¬ 
duce a great story writer, because the trouble is that when 
the professors and the schoolmen have analyzed a proposi¬ 
tion to shreds, and have mutually agreed about the exact 
interpretation of a phrase, and when the last “ t ” has been 
crossed, and the last “ i ” dotted, and we all think it is 
finished and go home to tea, some gink comes along and 
does everything exactly opposite to what has been taught, 
and yet he gets away with the goods. (I make no apologies; 
this can only be expressed in Americanese.) And yet this 
does not follow that the professors and the schoolmen are 
wrong. The difficulty is to strike the happy application 
of acquired experience to one’s own peculiar twists of 
personality. 

In England we hear some, but not very much, talk about 
style in literature. Style is only taken seriously as affect¬ 
ing clothes and cricket — particularly cricket. Style in 
cricket is almost an English sacrosanct tradition, and yet 
one day someone like G. L. Jessop comes along, plays with 
a crooked hat, crouches, stands in front of his wicket, and 
knocks up a century against the Australians at Lord’s in a 
test match. Even then it does not follow that the stylists 
are wrong. Jessop applies what he has learnt to the de- 
viii 


Foreword 


mands of his individual genius. The traditional style may 
still be sounder as a means of training the young. 

And so it must be with the writing of short stories. They 
are not written out of the blue, and Michael Joseph has 
some stimulating and suggestive things to say with regard to 
the origin of ideas and how they may be worked. 

Up to a certain point everything may be taught. A gifted 
pianoforte professor can teach a pupil not only to play cor¬ 
rectly, to phrase correctly, but even to produce a good 
quality of tone. And there the matter ends. If the pupil 
has genius he will go further. If he has not, he will stop 
where the professor leaves him. 

I am quite convinced that up to this point a pupil of any 
intelligence can be taught to write a short story. I once 
heard an eminent surgeon say: “I cannot think how anyone 
can write a story. It’s a perfect nightmare to me. I 
shouldn’t know even how to begin .” I italicize “ begin,” 
because that is rather the whole point. You certainly have 
to begin. But if you analyze the mental processes that go 
to the making of a short story you quickly realize that you 
have to finish before you begin. This is a point that Mr. 
Joseph makes quite clear. I shouldn’t know how to begin an 
operation for appendicitis, but my good surgeon rather over¬ 
looks the fact that he has finished his operation for appendi¬ 
citis (mentally) before he has begun it. This is a point 
which cannot be stressed too much — that a short story 
must be finished before it is begun. In other words that 
you must think it all out clearly and in detail before you 
begin to write. In a novel it is not so necessary, because 
you may wander off and enjoy yourself and come back; 
but in the short story you have to use the utmost economy 
and eliminate all superfluous matter. I am sure that the 
ix 


Foreword 


informative side of Mr. Joseph’s book regarding the com¬ 
mercial handling of short stories will be very welcome to 
younger writers who have little experience. The conditions 
which govern the professional career of the author have 
changed astoundingly during the last decade. Let us con¬ 
sider the two cases of Charles Dickens and H. G. Wells. 
Please understand that I am making no artistic compari¬ 
sons. I am merely regarding them as two highly success¬ 
ful literary shopkeepers in their respective day. In Dickens’ 
time he had his novels published in book form and some 
of them were serialized, and there from a business point of 
view the matter ended. But to be as successful as H. G. 
Wells must be a perfect nightmare. When he writes a novel 
he has to consider not only the disposal of the English 
book rights and the American book rights, but the English 
serial rights, and the American serial rights, and the 
translation rights in a dozen or more foreign countries. He 
has also to consider the film rights, and whether the novel 
would be adaptable as a play. And it looks as though 
quite soon we shall have some further complications with 
broadcasting or wireless rights. It sounds enormously 
lucrative, but on the other hand he has to pay American 
income tax, English income tax, and supertax, and then 
either a literary agent or a highly competent secretary. A 
friend of mine who wrote two best-sellers recently told me 
that he gets just eight shillings in the pound on what he 
earns! In some ways Dickens was better off, especially 
when we consider that a pound in his day went about as far 
as ten now. 

But certainly at the present day the literary shop is more 
exciting. Every day brings new developments, new cus¬ 
tomers, new disappointments, and new hopes. Anyone who 

x 


Foreword 


desires to live a comfortable life, with an assured income, 
and no worries, is advised not to keep a shop — not even a 
literary shop. But for him or her who is prepared to take 
the rough with the smooth, and to enjoy risks, and to endure 
discouragements, it is not a bad old shop. There are days 
when the weather is dull and overcast, and customers few 
and far between, and surly in their demeanor. You feel 
inclined to put up the shutters, and run away and leave it, 
and never come back. But wait awhile. There dawns a 
day when the sun comes out, and you suddenly think how 
attractive your goods look in the window, and customers 
are jolly and generous. They pat you on the back, and 
even pay for things in advance, and you are awfully pleased 
with yourself. You forget about the dull days. You even 
persuade yourself — quite unreasonably — that the dull 
days cannot return, because you are living them, and sun¬ 
shine is a more vital thing than mist. 


Stacy Aumonier. 




? 














' 




























* 










INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


This little book is meant to appeal to those who feel the 
need of a practical guide to short story writing. 

The majority of the authors quoted have been chosen as 
good working models for the writer who is anxious to pro¬ 
duce a saleable story; and on that account it has been 
necessary to omit reference to writers of the calibre of 
Tchehov, Henry James, Katherine Mansfield, Rebecca West, 
Walter de la Mare, Aldous Huxley, G. B. Stern, May Sin¬ 
clair, Maurice Baring, and Elizabeth Bibesco, although 
they are playing an important part in the development of 
the modern short story. The ultra-modern conception of 
the short story as a vehicle for brilliant writing will not 
help the would-be contributor to the magazines. 

In an endeavor to help the beginner I have tried to make 
clear certain general principles of short story writing in a 
simple, even elementary way, realizing, as I hope all young 
writers will realize, that the real art of story writing can 
never be taught. Individuality of thought and expression 
cannot be acquired by learning. But I do feel that at least 
in a negative way much can be done to remove the more 
obvious blemishes of amateur efforts. Even if this book 
serves only the purpose of stimulating interest in the work 
of certain modern writers of the short story it may perhaps 
be regarded as a useful stepping-stone. 

I claim no special qualification for a book on the short 
story except a practical experience of what the amateur 
really does require in the way of instruction and advice, 
xiii 


Introductory Note 


The practised writer’s point of view is more or less 
useless to the beginner. The unkind saying, “ Those who 
can, do; those who can’t, teach,” is my only other justifica¬ 
tion for producing a book whose sole aim is to help the 
unknown and aspiring writer. 


Michael Joseph. 


SHORT STORY WRITING 
FOR PROFIT 






















SHORT STORY WRITING 
FOR PROFIT 


CHAPTER I 

THE MAGAZINE SHORT STORY 

The short story used to be described as the Cin¬ 
derella of English literature. Fashions in fiction 
come and go, and there are signs that the prejudice 
against the short story, in book form, at any rate, 
is fast dwindling away. As a literary form the short 
story (except for a brief period in the ’nineties) has 
never really flourished in the past. Perhaps as Mr. 
Arthur Waugh has said: 

“ for some not altogether inexplicable reason, it seems 
to be generally alien to the English literary tempera¬ 
ment. . . .For the very qualities which constitute the 
essence of the short story — restraint, austerity, selec¬ 
tion, the prevailing and controlling moral idea — 
for these the typically impetuous and fecund English 
temperament has neither the time nor the disposition. 
The short story is an essay in discipline and interpre¬ 
tation, in which everything depends upon construc¬ 
tion, the delicate choice and arrangement of effects, 
the gradual development and revelation of the idea — 
3 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


in short, upon artistry and soul. And it is a plain 
fact that the average English novelist cannot take his 
art seriously enough to master the methods of elim¬ 
ination and production essential to the writing of a 
satisfactory short story.” 

Yet when Kipling astonished everybody in the 
66 ’eighties ” with a succession of brilliant short 
stories, he set a literary fashion which for the next 
decade produced a large and flourishing crop of short 
stories. The boom in the 64 ’nineties ” resulted in a 
surfeit. 

64 Scarcely an author of any repute or no repute,” 
says Rebecca West, 44 but wrote and published short 
stories. The better periodicals of the period, such as 
The Yellow Book and The Savoy , as well as the 
worse, were full of them.” 

Fortunately, not all of these were collected and 
published in book form or the short story might have 
received a blow from which it would have been slow 
to recoyer. The pendulum of public taste then began 
to swing in the opposite direction, and during the past 
twenty years publishers have generally fought very 
shy of the volume of collected short stories. 

Today, however, it is a significant fact that pub¬ 
lishers are beginning to look with a more favorable 
eye on short stories. Is it the old story of supply 
and demand? Or is it because the present day 
4 


The Magazine Short Story 


standard of the short story justifies an offering to the 
public at $2.00 a volume? With the demand for 
volumes of short stories this little book is not con¬ 
cerned. Good stories are worthy of the honor of 
permanent form. The wide editorial market is the 
field that engages our attention. 

I have never been able to understand the people 
who affect to despise 44 magazine stories.” When 
some achieve the dignity of book form, there is 
always an unkind critic to write disparagingly of 
44 fugitive fiction.” The fact remains that there is a 
flourishing market for readable short stories; the 
public demand entertaining fiction and are prepared 
to pay every month to get it. It is easy enough to say 
that public taste is not very high from an artistic 
point of view — but does that matter? The man who 
contributes short stories to the magazines is every 
whit as useful a member of society as the man who 
manufactures furniture or cheap jewelry, or who 
provides many of the plays that people pay to go and 
see. The 44 highbrow ” method of trying to educate 
public taste by producing (usually at some hyp¬ 
notized patron’s expense) a play or book that is 
miles above the public’s heads is simply a waste of 
time. 

In fiction there are two schools of thought. Henry 
James held that the art of fiction was to represent 
5 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


life. On the other hand Alphonse Daudet asserted 
that its primary object was to entertain. Between 
these two points of view there is really a wide gulf. 
The demand for fiction that simply entertains is by 
far greater than the demand for fiction of the Henry 
James standard; and it is obviously with the former 
that a book on short story writing for profit will have 
to deal. There is no reason to scorn the world of 
so-called 64 highbrows,” which is, after all, entertain¬ 
ment of a higher standard, appealing to a cultured 
minority. In any artistic or literary comparison 
popular fiction is bound to suffer, but taking a wide 
view even the most bitter critic must admit that popu¬ 
lar fiction serves a wholesome and altogether worthy 
purpose. It brings pleasure and comfort into count¬ 
less thousands of lives. No one need be ashamed of 
producing fiction that entertains. 

Yet the magazines — and the public — do not get 
the short stories they deserve. Many a story gets sent 
down to the printers because there is nothing better to 
put in. The trouble is that the ambitious young 
writer does not know where to begin. And it says 
much for the enterprise and imagination of our new 
writers that a respectable number of good short 
stories appear in print every month. This number 
could be considerably increased, and it is hoped that 
this little book will prove something of a practical 
6 


The Magazine Short Story 


help to all who wish to become contributors to the 
fiction magazines. 

The magazine short story is one of the most strik¬ 
ing developments of modern journalism. A few 
years ago it was in the experimental stage, making 
spasmodic and rather apologetic appearances in the 
more serious magazines. However distant the origin 
of the short story (and it claims descent from para¬ 
bles of Biblical days and tales told at Arab camp¬ 
fires) its rapid growth and expansion are an entirely 
modern development. The fiction magazine which 
contains from half-a-dozen to twenty complete stories 
is now an established institution. A later chapter 
deals comprehensively with the markets awaiting the 
writer’s work. Our first consideration is a clear 
understanding of the general aim of the short story. 

Sir Walter Besant’s definition, which applies to 
fiction generally, is worth quoting at this point: 

“ The Art of Fiction requires first of all the power 
of description, truth and fidelity, observation, selec¬ 
tion, clearness of conception and outline, dramatic 
grouping, directness of purpose, a profound belief 
on the part of the story-teller in the reality of his 
story, and beauty of workmanship.” 

Lest this rather formidable statement discourage 
the beginner, it is as well to point out that a magazine 
7 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


story may lamentably fail to reach this high standard 
and yet find its way into print. 

What is required for a magazine short story? 

To understand the requirements of short story 
writing and the rules which govern the production of 
a saleable short story a preliminary comparison 
between the novel and the short story is illuminating. 

A short story is not in any respect a condensed 
novel. The novel is as different from the short story 
as a canvas oil painting is from a miniature portrait. 
Each medium demands its own treatment. The con¬ 
fusion between the two forms of expression is prob¬ 
ably due to the fact that many successful novelists 
produce short stories with equal facility (although 
not always with equal felicity). The reverse process 
— the story writer turned novelist — is also common 
enough, but this is frequently due to the sense of 
confidence acquired and an ambition to work on the 
broader canvas. 

But although established authors use the two 
forms, the beginner must realize that the technique of 
each is absolutely individual. 

The essential difference between the short story 
and the novel is this: the short story aims at a single¬ 
ness of impression which the novel rarely can pro¬ 
duce. There should be one outstanding 64 point ” in 
a short story: one central incident, or climax, to which 
8 


The Magazine Short Story 

everything else in the story is strictly subordinate. 
(I exclude the comparatively rare short story of 
character in which characterization predominates and 
refer to the short story of action, in which the move¬ 
ment of events, or plot, is the chief interest.) Every¬ 
thing in the short story must lead up to just that 
one point which lands on the target of the reader’s 
receptive consciousness. The Greeks called it the 
66 catastrophe.” 

Take, for instance, 0. Henry’s story Two Thanks¬ 
giving Day Gentlemen. 

“ For the last nine years Stuffy Pete, an old tramp, 
has been met by an old gentleman and taken out to din¬ 
ner. Today he has already been treated to an enormous 
meal by two old ladies. Force of habit brings him to 
the annual trysting place. The old gentleman arrives, 
goes through the time-honored ceremony of invitation, 
and carries off Stuffy Pete to the restaurant. Stuffy 
Pete has not the heart to disappoint the old gentle¬ 
man and by prodigious effort chokes down a second 
enormous dinner. When the meal is finished the old 
gentleman and Stuffy Pete part at the door. When 
Stuffy Pete is outside he collapses. He is taken to 
hospital. They are puzzled to know what is the mat¬ 
ter with him. 

“ And lo! An hour later an ambulance brought the 
old gentleman. And they laid him on another bed 
and spoke of appendicitis, for he looked good for the 
bill. But pretty soon one of the young doctors met 

9 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


one of the young nurses whose eyes he liked, and 
stopped to chat with her about the cases. ‘ That nice 
old gentleman over there now,’ he said, 4 you wouldn’t 
think that was a case of almost starvation. Proud old 
family, I guess. He told me he hadn’t eaten a thing 
for three days.’ ” 

The 46 point ” in the story is, of course, the discov¬ 
ery that the old gentleman was starving. 0. Henry 
excels in the 44 surprise-ending ” short story, and this 
is a typical 0. Henry denouement which concentrates 
in a few simple words at the end the massed-up irony 
of the whole story. 

This singleness or unity of impression is vital to 
the success of a short story. Once the impression is 
delivered the story is all over. That is why the 
desired effect is nearly always produced in the climax 
at the end. A good test of the efficacy of the climax is 
to ask oneself whether it could be worked in earlier 
in the story. If so, there is something radically wrong 
with it. 

In Andrew Soutar’s story, The Way you look at 
Things , which is more a study of character than a plot 
story, you have a clever word-picture of a man 
blinded in the War who has returned to his native 
village embittered and in despair. He meets his old 
Colonel who takes him in hand, guides him about the 
countryside, stimulating his interest in all the things 
10 


The Magazine Short Story 

he can no longer see. The Colonel is a wonderful 
tonic; his cheery optimism reconciles his blind com¬ 
panion to the new order of things and completely 
changes his outlook. When at last he has a real grip 
on happiness and contentment of spirit that he 
thought completely lost to him, and is left in the 
company of the girl who had cared for him all along 
in spite of his affliction, he discovers that the old 
Colonel , too , is blind . 

Obviously this climax must come in the last few 
words. It could not be revealed earlier, and anything 
after it is not only superfluous but fatal. 

This essential 64 point ” must be the inspiration of 
the story; incident and characters can be dovetailed 
in to assist the general accumulative effect as re¬ 
quired; but while the process of selection and rejec¬ 
tion goes on in the writer’s mind the 44 point ” of the 
story must be installed on a lofty mental pedestal 
and never lost sight of. 

What is the length of a short story? This is a 
point on which it is impossible to legislate with 
finality. 

Some popular magazines publish so-called 44 long 
complete novels”; in reality novelettes, ranging in 
length from 12,000 to 30,000 words. Where, then, 
does the short story end and the novel begin? The 
average full-length novel contains about 80,000 
11 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


words. These novelettes of 20,000 or 30,000 words 
are, as a rule, condensed novels — not long short 
stories. The average magazine short story is from 
2,500 to 8,000 words long. From the average edi¬ 
tor’s point of view 3,000 to 4,000 words is a con¬ 
venient length. The difference between the short 
story and the novel is, as a matter of fact, a difference 
of kind, not of length. 

The mechanism of the short story is much simpler 
than that of the novel. There is no room for sub¬ 
plots, irrelevant characters or episodes, no scope for 
detail that does not bear directly on the single, main 
issue of the story. Every sentence must be examined, 
consciously or unconsciously, to see whether it is 
necessary to the story’s development. Inexperienced 
writers have a curious reluctance to delete anything 
once it is written, particularly if some turn of phrase 
happens to please them. This is a bad habit which 
must be ruthlessly eradicated. The test to apply to 
any word, sentence, or paragraph is: 64 Is this essen¬ 
tial to the story as a whole? How does this help the 
unfolding of the narrative? What is its definite 
purpose?” In any instance where it appears that 
dispensing with the passage in question will not mate¬ 
rially affect the story, then is the time to apply the 
sub-editor’s traditional maxim: 44 When in doubt, 
have it out!” 


12 


The Magazine Short Story 

Before going on to deal in detail with important 
features of short story writing, such as plot, dialogue, 
characterization, style, and so on, I propose to refer 
briefly to an aspect of fiction of which the importance 
is not fully realized. It is a general principle of all 
fiction. Practised writers observe it unconsciously, 
but the amateur does not always realize its great 
importance. The illusion of reality is the foundation 
of successful fiction. 

To understand the significance of this “ illusion ” 
think for a moment of the mental process you under¬ 
go when you begin to read a story. You uncon¬ 
sciously prepare yourself for immersion in another 
world. (Herein, in fact, lies the secret of the great 
attraction of fiction and drama for humanity.) This 
preparation is caused by an elemental desire to enjoy 
and appreciate the fictitious story to be unfolded 
before you. Vicariously you enter into the story, 
possibly as a protagonist. It is because the vast 
majority of readers — especially women — subcon¬ 
sciously identify themselves with the leading char¬ 
acter, usually the heroine of a story, that tales of 
triumph over adversity, of love conquering all, of 
ambitions realized and enemies thwarted, are so 
widely popular. In this way fiction — and as a 
parallel instance, the drama — represents an escape 
from the often harsh realities of life. The roseate 
13 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


world of fiction is a refuge for the majority of us 
who try in this subconscious way to forget the disap¬ 
pointments and delusions of real life. Perhaps this 
explains the popularity of stories with happy endings. 

To satisfy the reader’s craving, to induce him or 
her to forget their real existence and enter into the 
special little world created by your story, you must 
at all costs preserve the illusion. So-called realism 
in fiction is not really realism at all. It is a special 
brand of realism—for use in fiction only. Stories 
66 just like real life ” are nothing of the kind. Life is 
dull and monotonous; a faithful picture of real life 
would be the same. Think what it would mean to 
reproduce in writing the story of a man’s life for a 
day only! All the detail, the absolutely irrelevant 
happenings, the appallingly uninteresting routine of 
everyone’s daily life presented in detailed outline! 

Ordinary thoughts or conversation, for instance, 
cannot be transferred straight from real life to print. 
It would read like gibberish. The normal conversa¬ 
tion of real life, if reproduced faithfully in print, 
would not strike the reader as normal. In the same 
way description, narrative, the whole process of 
telling a story must be subject to a kind of refining 
process. 

All art is a continuous process of selection and 
adjustment. In fiction the details of the picture are 
14 


The Magazine Short Story 

not painted in but left to the imagination of the 
reader. It is important to realize that the reader is 
willing to cooperate with the writer by bringing his 
imagination to bear on the story and filling in the 
inevitable gaps. 

The author, then, starts with this advantage, that 
the reader is ready to meet him half-way, so to speak. 
The reader says, in effect: “I am willing, even 
anxious, to believe in the existence of your characters 
and the happenings of your story; only by this means 
shall I be able to derive enjoyment from it.” 

This places an important obligation on the writer. 
If through bad judgment or clumsy craftsmanship 
he strikes a false note, the reader cannot be expected 
to go on believing in the story. The illusion suffers 
to such an extent that the reader loses patience and, 
ceasing to enjoy the story, puts it down. It must 
be remembered that the average reader will accept 
the existence of the most widely improbable facts 
and people if necessary to the story and provided 
they are presented with sufficient skill. H. de Vere 
Stacpoole’s novel The Man Who Lost Himself and 
H. G. Wells’s famous romances contain the most in¬ 
credible plots and incidents but have given entertain¬ 
ment to thousands of readers. For the sake of enjoy¬ 
ing a story the reader will accept any hypothesis, 
however fantastic. 


15 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


The power of suggestion in fiction is of supreme 
importance. Take the description of the Wellsian 
66 Time Machine ” in the romance of that title: 

“ The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was 
a glittering metallic framework scarcely larger than a 
small clock, and very delicately made. There was 
ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline sub¬ 
stance . . . 


****** 

“ 4 This little affair,’ said the Time Traveller, rest¬ 
ing his elbows on the table, and pressing his hands 
together above the apparatus, ‘ is only a model. It is 
my plan for a machine to travel through time. You 
will notice that it looks singularly askew and that there 
is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as 
though it were in some way unreal.’ He pointed to the 
part with his finger. 4 Also, here is one little white 
lever, and here is another.’ 

44 The medical man got up out of his chair and 
peered into the thing. 4 It’s beautifully made,’ he said. 

****** 

44 In the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the 
little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before 
our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts 
had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. 
The thing was generally complete, but the twisted 
crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside 
16 


The Magazine Short Story 


some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a 
better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be.” 

That is all, but it is enough. 

Such an insinuating method is infinitely more 
effective than any amount of detailed description. In 
fact the latter would probably confuse the reader, 
who is not so much anxious to visualize the machine 
as to accept the hypothesis of its invention and manu¬ 
facture and get on with the story. 

Take Gilbert Frankau’s description of a storm at 
sea: 

“ He saw the rails dip — saw water rise up over 
them, a solid wall of it, thick turquoise glass, white- 
spotted as if by a shower of stones; saw it stand 
straight up, smooth opaque window between deck and 
deck; stand quite still. This was death? . . . The 
blue wall tottered, fell back into the yellowy slather 
of sea.” 

This is what the author himself says of it: 

“ This particular little picture is a piece of real 
life as I saw it myself from the deck of a ship during 
a typhoon. The points to note are that the picture 
conveys not what actually happened but what appeared 
to happen. Any sailor will tell you that what actually 
must have happened was that the ship heeled right 
over into the water. Seen from the deck, however, it 
17 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

looked as though water came over the ship 4 like a blue 
wall.’ Nor did the blue wall really 4 fall back.’ 
What happened was that the ship recovered herself 
and stood on a more or less even keel. All the same, 
I feel that, to the average reader sitting safely in an 
armchair at home, the few lines of picturing give a 
far more realistic impression than would a long 
description of what actually happened.” 

Preserving the illusion, then, is one of the most 
decisive factors in successful fiction. 

We can now go on to deal with what is probably 
the most vital element in the magazine short story, 
the Plot. 


18 


CHAPTER II 


PLOT 

“ In the popular magazines,” says Arnold Bennett, 
44 ingenuity of plot is almost everything.” 

The plot, or the outline of the actual story, is of 
supreme importance. Many a magazine story owes 
its publication almost entirely to an ingenious plot. 
Without a good plot the average amateur effort is 
doomed from the outset. There is, of course, a type 
of story which depends for its effect not so much on 
plot as on character or atmosphere; and a good study 
of character, particularly when it is the work of an 
author with a 44 big ” name, is a common enough 
feature of our magazines. For the purpose of this 
chapter it is, however, sufficient to consider only the 
straightforward action story. 

Originality of plot is an ideal not always realized 
in practice. The old saying, that there is nothing new 
under the sun, applies forcefully to fiction. In the 
strict sense of the word originality is practically non¬ 
existent. Ingenuity, cleverness, novelty, fertility of 
invention, yes, but not real originality. Most maga¬ 
zine stories are variations on very ancient themes. 
There are many easily recognizable types of plot: 

19 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


the eternal triangle (the man and wife and the other 
man or woman), the mystery plot, the story of the 
coward who is really a hero all the time, plots with 
sacrifice as the central motive, plots with a moral, in 
which villainy is overthrown and virtue triumphant, 
the mistaken identity plot, the love story which ends 
with wedding bells, the 64 surprise ” ending plot, and 
so on, familiar to every editor. But however hack¬ 
neyed the theme, freshness of treatment will go a long 
way towards securing favorable consideration. An 
old plot treated from a new angle will satisfy most 
editorial requirements. 

What is a plot? Definitions are proverbially dan¬ 
gerous, we know. But certainly a plot may be 
described as the outline of the story, the bare outline 
stripped of all description, characterization and 
dialogue. The plot should not be confused with 
what is often called the 44 theme.” The central idea, 
the general inspiration of the story is the theme. 

“ A husband and wife, very hard up, but each anx¬ 
ious to make the other a present on the anniversary of 
their wedding day, resolve independently to sacrifice a 
precious private possession. The day comes, and the 
husband produces the combs he has bought for his 
wife’s beautiful hair by the sale of his beloved fiddle, 
only to find that his wife has cut off and sold her hair 
to provide him with a new bow for his violin.”* 

* The Gift of the Magi. —0. Henry. 

20 


Plot 


The central idea of this briefly expressed plot is 
the irony of sacrifice. The spirit of sacrifice perme¬ 
ates the story and thus forms the theme. 

But the plot is something different from the theme. 
Theme is the more general term, plot has to fulfil a 
number of more or less definite requirements. 
Usually the theme is the first thing to suggest itself 
to the writer’s mind, the plot deriving naturally 
from it. 

A mere narrative is not a plot. As Edgar Allan 
Poe says: 

“ A mere succession of incidents will not constitute 
a plot. A plot, properly understood, is perfect only 
inasmuch as we shall find ourselves unable to detach 
from it or disarrange any single incident involved 
without destruction to the mass. This, we say, is the 
point of perfection — a point never yet attained, but 
not on that account unattainable. Practically we may 
consider a plot as of high excellence when no one of 
its component parts shall be susceptible of removal 
without detriment to the whole.” 

The essential point of difference between plot and 
narrative lies in a feature of the former which may 
be called Complication (in the sense of crisis). In 
narrative, events are described in a straightforward 
manner, and usually in their natural sequence; in a 
plot the happenings are complicated . This device 
21 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


arouses the interest or curiosity of the reader and 
maintains it until the final denouement (untying). 

Not all short stories conform to this pattern; in 
fact, it cannot be too often emphasized that the art 
of short story writing admits of few dogmatic rules 
and regulations. It is an elastic medium of expres¬ 
sion, and I am firmly convinced that more can be 
learned by an intelligent study of successful examples 
than by any other means. But first of all it is essen¬ 
tial to understand the requirements of a good short 
story plot. 

With this in view I recommend all young writers 
(by this I mean, of course, inexperienced writers) to 
start a Plot Book. This should be divided into two 
sections, containing in the first: analysis summaries 
of good short stories, and in the second, original plot 
summaries and outlines for personal use. 

Analyzing and summarizing good plots is a most 
helpful literary exercise. Aim at putting on record 
in tabloid form any plot which strikes you as being 
exceptionally good. Plots of stories by well-known 
authors like 0. Henry, W. W. Jacobs, Leonard Mer¬ 
rick, Stacy Aumonier, Gilbert Frankau, Arthur Mor¬ 
rison, Elinor Mordaunt, should be condensed into 
about 250-300 words and this brief outline, which 
may be jotted down in the form of notes if desired, 
committed to the Plot Book. Any current magazine 
22 


Plot 


story with a striking plot may be similarly dealt 
with. To give a practical instance of what I mean, 
your Plot Book might contain something on these 
lines: 


Homeward Bound, by Perceval Gibbon. A Tale of 
Tragic Vengeance. 

Dan Goodwin, who has made good in Africa, is 
on the point of sailing for home. His wife, Incarna- 
cion, a beautiful primitive-natured girl, reluctantly 
hands him his coat and pocket-book, afraid that he 
may gamble with the money which the next morning 
is to pay for their passage. On his way to Mulligan’s 
saloon Dan is sandbagged and robbed. Frantic, he 
enlists the help of a friend and embarks on a wild 
search for the man with an odd rubber-soled shoe 
whose footprint is his sole clue. At last after weary 
search they strike the man’s trail in the sand, and 
corner him in his ramshackle house. They find the 
pocket-book empty. The thief swears there was “ only 
twenty milreis ” in it. To make him reveal where the 
£200 is hidden Dan threatens him with torture. The 
terrified wretch sticks to his story and Dan, infuriated 
at the thought of disappointing his beloved Incarna- 
cion, tortures him — to death. He goes home, inert 
with misery. Incarnacion greets him, as a child rather 
frightened of being scolded. She produces two second- 
class passages, Beira to London, and then the rest of 
the money. Because he had assured her he would not 
play cards, she had taken out the money, leaving him 
only twenty milreis for drinks. “ Only twenty milreis!” 
23 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


After a dozen or more stories have been thus con¬ 
densed and recorded in the Plot Book, the require¬ 
ments of a successful plot will gradually become 
apparent. It is both unnecessary and inadvisable to 
try and formulate any definite rules governing plot 
ideas. It is fairly safe to assert that fixed rules and 
definitions have seldom produced or assisted in 
the production of good plot ideas. Cut-and-dried 
formulae are useless. Generally speaking, a good plot 
should be original, understandable, and convincing. 

As a reader you realize the effect of a short story 
when you have finished it; you know whether you 
have enjoyed it or not, i.e., whether as far as you are 
concerned, the story succeeds or fails. If a story 
strikes you as a good one it is an excellent plan to 
put into writing at once a paragraph or two to express 
the impression the story makes on you. From this 
the plot summary develops naturally. By this means 
you will be working backwards to the point from 
which the writer started. This analysis of other 
people’s work will help you to gain further under¬ 
standing of the requirements of the process and is 
invaluable. 

Gradually a study of good short stories will 
enable you to realize all you want to know about 
plots. No great degree of intelligence is necessary 
to pick out and write down in your own words the 
24 


Plot 


plot of a story you have just read. At this point an 
indication of writers to study will probably be useful. 
First and foremost there is: 

0. Henry (William Sidney Porter) 

The plots of this master-craftsman in the art of 
short story writing are an admirable model. Crisp, 
distinctive and interest-compelling all the time, his 
plots should be carefully studied and analyzed by all 
who are anxious to produce good stories. It is diffi¬ 
cult to discriminate where the standard is so high, but 
the following stories are specially recommended for 
the purpose of plot study: 

Hearts and Crosses The Man Higher Up 

The Ransom of MackM The Cop and the Anthem 
The Handbook of Hymerii “ Next to Reading Matter 99 
The Reformation of Cal- A Double-Dyed Deceiver 
Hope A Retrieved Reformation 

The Pimiento Pancakes V Friends in San Rosario 
The Passing of Black Proof of the Pudding 

Eagle The Love Philtre of I key V 

A Madison Square Ara-^f Schoenstein 

bian Night Jimmy Hayes and Muriel 

The Count and the Wed- The Ethics of Pig 

ding Guest The Badge of Policeman y" 

Jeff Peters as a Personal O’Roon 
Magnet 


25 


Short Story Writing for Profit 
Leonard Merrick 

Guy de Maupassant is in many respects the pro¬ 
totype of Leonard Merrick, who is well-known as 
“ the novelists’ novelist.” Merrick has written some 
of the best modern short stories. These are well 
worth reading from every point of view. 

The plots of the following stories deserve special 
study: 

A Very Good Thing for The Boom 

the Girl The Laurels and the Lady 

Picq Plays the Hero Frankenstein II 
The Bishop’s Comedy With Intent to Defraud 
A Flat to Spare The Favourite Plot 

H. de Vere Stacpoole 

is better known as the author of The Blue Lagoon 
and other successful novels than as a writer of short 
stories, but his plots are so varied and striking that 
the student should certainly read: 

Was She? The Mystery of Captain 

The Story of Gombi Knott 

Did Kressler Kill His 
Wife? 

Stacy Aumonier 

whose two volumes of collected short stories have 
already established his reputation as a master of the 
short story, cannot be said to rely chiefly upon plot 
26 


Plot 


for the artistic success of his stories, but the student 
will derive much benefit from a study of his work, 
notably: 


The Landlord of the 
Love-a-Duck 
Little White Frock 
The Accident of Crime 
The Great Unimpression¬ 
able 


The Golden Windmill 
The Brown Wallet 
The Octave of Jealousy 
Old Iron 

A Source of Irritation 
Them Others 


H. G. Wells 

His collection of stories The Country of the Blind 
contains some splendid models for the young writer. 
Nearly all his plots will repay analysis and study. 
Especially do they indicate how wide is the range of 
the short story. Admirable plots are to be found in 
the following stories: 

The Stolen Bacillus The Magic Shop 

The New Accelerator The Obliterated Man 
The Door in the Wall A Slip under the Micro - 

The Crystal Egg scope 


Wells is a logical, clear-thinking writer, and his 
plots are the product of an exceptional imagination. 
Brilliantly conceived, and developed with uncanny 
skill, there is a clean-cut, vigorous quality about his 
short stories which it is impossible to imitate (with 
27 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


apologies to Max Beerbohm), but which is invaluable 
for purposes of study. His stories strike one as 
being literary tours de force . Few of us can reach 
the level of a writer like Wells, but just as playing 
tennis or bridge with the best players improves one’s 
game, so does the study of the best writers’ work 
enable one to visualize the art of writing properly, 
even if it only means catching a glimpse of the right 
kind of work. 

Other writers whose plots are always worth exam¬ 
ination are: 


Perceval Gibbon 
Roland Pertwee 
John Galsworthy 
Douglas Newton 
May Edginton 
Jack London 


66 Sapper ” 

Frank Norris 
Elinor Mordaunt 
Arthur Morrison 
F. Britten Austin 
Eden Phillpotts 


No young writer should be discouraged through 
reading the work of celebrated authors. Dissatisfac¬ 
tion with one’s own work is a healthy sign and should 
be expressed in an untiring and continuous effort to 
discover and remove faults and blemishes. 64 1 shall 
never be able to write like that,” is a despondent cry 
that comes to the lips of all ambitious writers at some 
time or other, but there is no need for depression. 
The standard of magazine fiction at any rate is not 
28 


Plot 


so high as all that. The satisfaction of seeing one’s 
stories in print is within the reach of most of us. 

The reading stage is never done with. Reading 
is food and drink to the writer, and his reading 
should cover a wide range. It is absurd to despise 
magazine fiction. From a practical point of view it 
is useful to be able to write a magazine story, and 
grateful and comforting in these hard times to receive 
the editor’s check. Surely it is sound policy to keep 
in close touch with the markets you intend to 
approach. Therefore read, and go on reading as 
much as you can, both high-class stories and maga¬ 
zine fiction as well. 

The next step is finding plots for oneself. 

This is not so difficult as is sometimes supposed. 
Often young writers have said to me despairingly: 
66 1 don’t get any inspiration. How am I going to 
find a good plot without inspiration?” 

This 64 inspiration ” fallacy is responsible for 
colossal damage to literary ambition. An old 
machine-gun maxim is 44 Success is one per cent inspi¬ 
ration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” 

It can be usefully applied to writing. 

The most fruitful source of inspiration is probably 
the newspaper. Under the matter-of-fact surface of 
police court and county court proceedings the drama 
of humanity in all its aspects is revealed daily to any 
29 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


observant eye. Newspaper paragraphs often contain 
the germ of an idea. It is this germ you want. 
Adapt it, modify it, develop it, chew it over in 
your mind and your plot presently begins to 
formulate. 

64 One gets ideas in all sorts of ways,” Elinor 
Mordaunt once told me. 64 Reading the papers, par¬ 
ticularly the Sunday papers; books of travels; hooks 
on insanity or criminology; scientific books: once 
get bitten with the love of story writing, and it crops 
up in everything.” 

You read perhaps of a railway strike with its con¬ 
sequent hold-up of vital foodstuffs, milk and so on. 
Here is your 44 germ.” Your mind goes over the 
ground and considers the possibilities. The first 
thing that suggests itself is perhaps the family of one 
of the strikers. The wife an invalid, maybe — or a 
child’s chance of life may depend on fresh milk sup¬ 
ply. The 44 point ” of your story at once makes 
itself manifest. The striker triumphs; the child dies. 
You consider carefully the different aspects of the 
story. Milk? Rather crude, perhaps. Substitutes 
could probably be secured somehow. Then why a 
railway strike? Let’s have some other form of strike. 
The mind, continuing to explore, at last alights on a 
satisfactory theme. The story begins to unfold itself 
convincingly in your mind’s eye: 

30 


Plot 


A working electrician’s child lies dangerously ill. 
The doctor tells the poor mother that the crisis will 
come in about three days. The man, thinking it safe 
to leave them, goes to a labor union meeting. But 
that night the baby is choking. A friend goes for the 
doctor. 44 It’s all right,” he reassures her. 44 Just a 
slight operation and all will be well. Don’t worry: 
the crisis has come a little sooner than I expected, 
that’s all.” The doctor moves the single electric light 
over the bed and begins to sterilize his instruments, 
the mother standing beside him. He bends over the 
child and makes an incision, then another. Suddenly 
— darkness! The light has gone out. 44 Great God! ” 
he cries, 44 why did you turn out the light?” 44 1 
didn’t,” comes from the darkness. They turn franti¬ 
cally to the switch — it is useless. At last with grop¬ 
ing fingers a candle is found. Too late! The baby 
is dead. A noise floats to their ears from the streets 
below: the tramp of feet, the Marseillaise. The door 
opens. The husband stands triumphant before them. 
“Victory!” he cries. 44 We’ve won! There’s not an 
electric light burning in all Paris tonight.”* 

And all this may spring from a prosaic newspaper 
report! This is where your Plot Book sees active 
service. Jot down in it any striking incident or situa¬ 
tion that may work up into a good short story. The 
actual facts may be useless as they stand, but if you 
set your imagination to work an adjustment of the 

* From a story by George Jean Nathan in the Associated Sunday 
Magazine, U. S. A. 

31 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

situation or an adaptation of the incident will just do 
the trick. 

In this way all sorts of fascinating possibilities 
present themselves. Personal experiences may be 
pressed into service. Nothing is too small or too 
insignificant; a milk can seen on a doorstep in the 
early morning, a horse struggling under a heavy load, 
a woman coming out of a lawyer’s office, sobbing, a 
suburban exchange of old clothes for a plant, a bor¬ 
rowed book with a letter left in it — all these seem¬ 
ingly trivial details may ultimately provide the 
material for a splendid plot. The Eight Wonder , by 
A. S. M. Hutchinson, probably owes its inspiration to 
a cigarette picture. 

46 A scientist once told me,” wrote Elinor Mor- 
daunt, 64 that if it were possible to bring cold to a cer¬ 
tain point below freezing, I believe he called it the 
absolute zero, anything affected by it would abso¬ 
lutely disappear. Shut a man in an ice-room with 
such a temperature and there would not be so much 
as a button left to tell the tale. ... 4 What a plot 
for a murder story!’ That was my one thought.” 

One story frequently suggests another. This is 
particularly true of film stories. Perhaps the atmos¬ 
phere of the cinema, where the eyes concentrate on 
transmitting the story to the brain and the senses are 
soothed (sometimes) by music, encourages the brain 
32 


Plot 


to go exploring for itself. The actors are silent; 
there are no voices to interrupt a train of thought. I 
heartily recommend the cinema as a stimulator of 
plot ideas. 

Searching for plots is a pastime which ultimately 
becomes an ingrained habit. It is, moreover, an 
entertaining mental exercise, and the more you prac¬ 
tise the better you become at it. The imagination 
seems to thrive on its own ingenuity. 

It is difficult to avoid the hackneyed plot and still 
more difficult to advise what to avoid, but as a rough- 
and-ready rule editors do not like plots based on: 

(1) Mistaken Identity. 

(2) Sacrifice for Love’s Sake. 

(3) The eternal triangle plot (two men and 
one woman or two women and one man). 

(4) The hero who sets out to make a fortune 
and comes back in the last line to marry 
the girl who has waited for him, or the poor 
boy whose industry wins him the hand of his 
employer’s daughter. 

(5) The hero (!) who unwittingly offends his 
new employer or future father-in-law. 

Yet, as I have said, the most hackneyed theme or 
plot may be used provided the treatment is original. 
These ancient plots are like diamonds cut with many 
facets. The whole appearance may be different if a 
33 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


new facet or aspect be presented to the reader. And, 
of course, the editor’s point of view is his readers’ 
point of view. He is paid to interpret what his 
readers want. 

Short stories with a religious or political bias 
should be carefully avoided. Fiction editors will 
never risk the publication of a story which might 
cause offence to any section of their public — how¬ 
ever small. A story with an improper theme is 
similarly offensive. 

The magazine story should not be a vehicle for 
personal opinions, prejudices, and only rarely for 
philosophy. 

It is often difficult to decide what to work on and 
what to reject in one’s plot for short stories. Although, 
as Elinor Mordaunt says, you should 64 write stories 
without ceasing if you want to succeed, sparing noth¬ 
ing in the way of trouble, grudging nothing in the 
way of mental outlay,” it is not easy to discriminate 
between ideas for plots. 

What you may think 64 a fine idea ” for a story 
may peter out in the most disappointing way when 
you start to work it out in pen and ink. The tempta¬ 
tion to begin at once on 44 a fine idea ” is often fatal. 

44 Most writers of experience,” wrote the literary 
critic of the London Weekly Dispatch , “ especially 
those engaged in manufacturing short stories that are 
34 


Plot 


not utterly ephemeral and conventional, know that 
there is nothing they must be more wary of than ‘ the 
fine idea.’ More often than not this attractive and 
intriguing visitor from the unknown is a double-dyed 
traitor sent to waste the time and energy of the poor 
author, to render him bad-tempered, and to lure him 
like a will-o’-wisp into a literary morass. 

“ In other words, 4 the fine idea ’ has a fatal habit 
of proving abortive when it is called upon to produce 
a fine story. It is discovered to lead either nowhere 
at all or to some quite unsatisfactory result, very 
different from the original expectation. 

“ The trouble is that the misguided author does not 
find out how he has been fooled till he has spent 
enormous trouble over something that was doomed 
from the start to be a failure. 

“ The note-books of professional story-tellers are 
filled with 4 fine ideas.’ They all get them. The more 
optimistic sit down to write at once under the spell, 
and in nine cases out of ten suffer disappointment. 

“ The knowing ones merely jot 4 the fine idea ’ down 
in their note-books and leave it there along with its 
brethren until its pristine glamor has worn off and its 
virtues as a literary seedling may be judged with a 
critical and dispassionate eye. Not infrequently ‘the 
fine idea ’ never does emerge from the note-book. 
Once its meretricious smile has worn off, it is seen to 
be hollow with deceit.” 

No better motto exists for the young writer than 
“make haste slowly.” Write at white heat, by all 
35 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


means, but if your judgment on any point is the least 
bit indefinite, it is better to put the plot or the incom¬ 
plete manuscript or even the finished story on one 
side for a week or two and then go back to it. You 
will find that your critical judgment is much keener 
and decision will often prove easy enough. The 
secret of this simple little plan is that you come to 
your own work as a reader and critic, not as a creator. 

Submitting plots to your friends is a good plan if 
they have the patience to listen. Not that their ver¬ 
dict will help you much (unless they are specially 
qualified to judge), for they are bound to be preju¬ 
diced one way or the other; in fact, it is hard to say 
whether the enthusiasm and praise of one’s admiring 
friends are not more damaging than the determined 
candor of the person who secretly doesn’t think 66 poor 
Arthur will ever do any good with his stories.” No, 
the benefit you will reap is by talking over your 
embryonic stories aloud. On the principle that 
prophets are unhonored in their own country, it is 
best to avoid one’s own family and to discuss these 
things with one’s friends only. Telling your rough 
ideas to people helps you to clarify your own vision, 
to hammer out on the anvil of discussion the actual 
working-scheme of your story. 

Thinking about your plot is almost as good as talk¬ 
ing aloud about it. The original inspiration may 
36 


Plot 


be distinct and clean-cut, but, generally speaking, 
the building of the story, the characters, the ever¬ 
present problem of what to put in and what to leave 
out — all this is hazy and only dimly visualized. 
Therefore allow yourself — or, if you are a slow 
thinker, force yourself — to think. Consider your 
characters, the various methods you can employ to 
unfold the story, the hundred and one details of its 
structure — let it all soak in carefully before you 
take up a pen. Unless, of course, you are one of 
those people who cannot think clearly and logically 
except with a pen in their hands. Stacy Aumonier 
takes his plots for a walk, literally; and when the 
idea is absorbed, digested and the various incidents 
and characters brought into focus, he writes the whole 
story at one sitting. If an idea does not develop nat¬ 
urally, he scraps it. Elinor Mordaunt, too, is firmly 
of the opinion that it is hopeless to start tinkering 
with a short story. If it gets out of hand it must be 
scrapped, and, after a while, if the plot still seems 
good enough, rewritten. 

I do not suggest that these few ideas are the royal 
road to success at plot finding. The ultimate judge 
of your work sits in an editorial chair daily sifting 
literary wheat from chaff. So much of the stuff that 
goes to the making of good short stories cannot be 
taught — individuality of style, humor, sympathy, 
37 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


that 66 unconscious sense of judgment,” a feeling for 
effect, a sense of balance or proportion, imagination, 
good taste, and just that human touch which arouses 
and grips interest, lifting the story out of the ruck of 
piled MSS.— none of these things can be acquired by 
learning. Not that every magazine story has all or 
any of these qualities; and while I, in common with 
all admirers of the short story as a literary form, 
should like to see the standard raised all round, and, 
needless to say, prefer a good story to a bad one, I 
must still insist on the possibilities awaiting the ordi¬ 
nary writer in the fiction market of today. 

And, without doubt, plot is the most important 
feature of the present-day short story, and in my 
opinion the feature of amateur efforts which is most 
susceptible of improvement. Therefore concentrate 
on getting a good plot. Remember that a story by an 
unknown writer, however well written and con¬ 
structed, has very small hope of success if the plot is 
feeble; and, on the other hand, a good plot goes a 
very long way and brings a gleam of satisfaction into 
the editor’s eye. 

Hard work is the real secret of success. Reading 
for profit as well as pleasure, and real hard work. 
Writing and writing; sometimes writing for hours 
only to destroy and begin afresh; and unfailing 
patience and perseverance. 

38 


Plot 


Ideas for plots do not descend like a bolt out of 
the blue. The writer who sits biting his penholder, 
waiting for inspiration, gets 66 left ” in the race. 
Plots are everywhere around us; it is up to us to go 
out and look for them and drag them in by their tails. 


39 


CHAPTER III 


THE COMPOSITION OF THE SHORT STORY 

(1) The Opening 

The two most common ways of telling a short story 
are: 

(1) Third person narrative, 

(2) First person singular narrative. 

Various other forms exist. The 66 diary ” form 

(e.g., The Horla, by Guy de Maupassant), the 
46 single-letter ” form (e.g., In the Year of Our Lord, 
1918, by Leonard Merrick), the correspondence form 
(e.g., A Man of Letters, by Stacy Aumonier), and the 
all-dialogue form, which is practically equivalent to 
the one-act play. 

Third Person Narrative 

This is the most popular form, and one generally 
adapted to the needs of the short story. It gives the 
writer the 44 omniscience ” which enables him to 
relate the speech and thoughts of all the characters 
and to be in as many places at once as is necessary. 
The writer usually keeps entirely in the background. 
The story is told in a straightforward manner and the 
author refrains from butting in with any comments 
40 


The Composition of the Short Story 

of his own. This principle is, however, frequently 
violated with impunity by well-known authors. 
Thackeray frequently steps into his pages to point a 
moral. 0. Henry inserts many a slice of personal 
philosophy to interrupt the action of the story; but 
these are the privileges of success, and the beginner 
will be well advised to keep his story impersonal. 

First Person Singular 

This method of telling a story has one outstanding 
advantage. The personal point of view lends addi¬ 
tional conviction to the story, although at the same 
time it does restrict the useful omniscience already 
referred to. There is, however, no objection to a 
combination of both methods. Many a successful 
story told in the first person takes full advantage of 
omniscience. But it has to be done very carefully, 
otherwise the illusion of reality is at once shattered 
and the story must fail. 

The story-teller must not be egotistical or the 
reader’s sympathy will vanish. “ The man who 
writes an autobiography is telling a story against 
himself.” The hero describing his own exploits is 
thus in a delicate position. Therefore the type of 
story which most suitably lends itself to this method 
of narration is that which is told by a subordinate 
character. For example, take the Sherlock Holmes 
41 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


stories, narrated by his friend Dr. Watson. Watson 
is an amiable, rather stupid person who acts as an 
excellent foil to the astute Sherlock Holmes. On 
the other hand, the same author’s Exploits of Briga¬ 
dier Gerard are told by the Brigadier himself; but 
the story of his adventures has no displeasing flavor 
of egotism because the boasting is all part of the fun. 

Many of Michael Arlen’s stories are told in the 
first person, with the actual narrator of the story a 
subordinate character whose outlines are just suffi¬ 
ciently shaded in to prevent the reader’s regarding 
him as a complete nonentity. Thus The Man with the 
Broken Nose, The Luck of Captain Fortune and The 
Ancient Sin. A classic instance of this method is 
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Gold Bug. 

The various other ways of telling short stories 
are temporarily, at any rate, so much out of fashion 
that it is not worth while discussing them here. How¬ 
ever, let no one be discouraged from attempting a 
story in diary or letter form. It may so happen that 
such a method will suit his or her particular style or 
fit in happily with the general scheme of the story; 
but it is just as well to sound this note of warning: 
editors of today do not care for these methods. Un¬ 
doubtedly the best form for the beginner is third per¬ 
son narrative. There is no suggestion of egotism and 
there is no restriction in telling the story. 

42 


The Composition of the Short Story 


All that can be safely said of the structure of the 
modern short story is that study will reveal certain 
fundamental principles. The whole framework is 
elastic, and any effort which, in the words of Mr. 
H. G. Wells, is 64 very bright and moving; it may be 
horrible or pathetic or funny or beautiful or pro¬ 
foundly illuminating, having only this essential, that 
it should take from fifteen to fifty minutes to read 
aloud,” is entitled to be considered a short story. 

We are not, however, concerned so much with 
definitions as with the various types of story which 
experience has shown to be acceptable to editors. 

The majority of short stories published may be 
roughly dissected as follows: 

(1) Opening or Introduction. 

(2) Body of the Story. 

(3) Catastrophe or Climax, and (sometimes) 
Denouement. 

Elinor Mordaunt’s theory of the short story is, 
roughly, the shape of a triangle: a long base, one 
long side, and a short drop. 


3 




Short Story Writing for Profit 


46 Catastrophe ” is used in the Greek sense and sig¬ 
nifies that “ point ” in the story which is emphasized 
in the chapter on Plot. The 64 catastrophe ” must 
make a sharp, distinct impression on the reader, 
whether of surprise, horror, amusement or any other 
emotion. From this point the story must march with 
quickened stride to its imminent end. Sometimes the 
catastrophe (B) occurs in the very last paragraph, 
and thus coinciding with the climax (C), ends the 
story. This point is more fully dealt with in the 
chapter on 64 Climax.” 

The construction of short stories is vitally affected 
by two considerations — time and space. The action 
of a short story must be an unbroken thread. It is 
impossible to set a limit to the time covered by the 
action; William Caine’s story, The Pensioner *, is 
only 1,600 words long, yet effectively covers a period 
of ninety-seven years. 

Generally speaking, the rules which govern the 
one-act play apply to the short story. The action 
should occupy only a brief period of time without 
any dislocations such as 44 Ten years passed by.” 
Similarly restricted space is advisable. The entire 
action may take place within one room. This is 
known, of course, as 44 observing the unities,” and is 

* Included in The Best Short Stories of 1922. Small, Maynard 
& Company.) 


The Composition of the Short Story 

one of the fundamental differences between the short 
story and the novel. 

The interest must be accelerated as the story is 
gradually unfolded. Therefore the catastrophe or 
climax represents the summit of the reader’s interest, 
and it is at this point that the desired effect of the 
story is produced, the snapshot impression flashed at 
the reader — and then Finis. 

The basis of the story, the setting, atmosphere, 
characterization, anything you want the reader to 
know before the climax is presented must be worked 
in beforehand. Not by description but by sugges¬ 
tion. Indirect suggestion is better than direct descrip¬ 
tion. It is true, as one authority points out, that the 
writer may in a single sentence supply his characters 
with emotions and sentiments. Adjectives are com¬ 
mon enough. But the most effective description is 
indirect; the revelation of character and emotion by 
means of dialogue and incident. All this is woven 
into the fabric of the story, as anyone who analyzes 
good short stories may readily see for himself. Skill 
in interweaving the basis of the story and the actual 
plot is craftsmanship, which (except for a few rare 
cases of genius or “ knack ”) is a matter of laborious 
study and experiment. But it makes all the differ¬ 
ence between good short stories and bad. 

Let us, then, roughly divide the short story into 
45 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


three parts, the opening or beginning, the body of the 
story, and the climax, catastrophe, denouement or 
end, and consider each fragment in turn. 

The Opening or Beginning 

This is very important. The first few lines of a 
story have been well described as 66 the author’s letter 
of introduction to the reader.” It is essential to 
arouse the reader’s interest as quickly as possible. 
Dull, rambling introductions are uninviting and the 
jaded reader (or editor) is at once prejudiced un¬ 
favorably. There is no room in the modem short 
story for any preamble. The violinist is obliged to 
tune his instrument before he can play; the writer is 
at no such disadvantage. 

In addition to arousing interest, the beginning of a 
story has another important function. It must strike 
the keynote of the story. A humorous story must 
be indicated by a humorous opening; the adventure 
story, love story, mystery story, must all have appro¬ 
priate beginnings. The reader must be prepared for 
the nature of the story. This, for instance, is a 
typical humorous story opening: 

“ Over the expensive life of Henry McAdam Bulpit 
hovered ever a presence, chilling, whiskered, sinister, 
cramping it, robbing it of life and joy, oppressive, 
46 


The Composition of the Short Story 

very nearly crushing — his butler, Janies Crowley.” 
(Henry Bulpit Breaks Away — Edgar Jepson.) 

The following opening plainly indicates the theme: 

“It is an old, old threadworn story that often — or 
always — a man is trapped by the fate or providence 
or deity or life he has defied. But never was there 
so strange a trapping, so deliberate and terrible and 
unescapable a snare, as that which befell Robert 
Kinstry. Never was the finesse of God more exquisitely 
set forth.” (The White Lotus — H. Bedford Jones, 
Blue Book Magazine.) 

In A Portrait of a Coward ,* Leonard Merrick 
strikes the keynote of the story in the very first 
sentence. 

“ Every Sunday Mrs. Findon went with her two 
step-daughters to the cemetery and put flowers on the 
grave.” 

Followed eight lines later by: 

“ and their young stepmother would gaze from the 
window, wondering whether the pretence of mourning 
a husband she had not loved was to be her lot for 
life.” 

Although it is not essential to strike the keynote 
of the story in the very first paragraph, it is always 

* In To tell you the Truth. 


47 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


advisable to do so as quickly as possible. It is not 
necessary to emphasize this point, as anyone with an 
instinct for writing will do it almost unconsciously. 

The general aim of the writer is to put the reader 
in the right frame of mind. More particularly to 
convey either setting, atmosphere, or information. 
There are three recognized ways of beginning a 
story: 

(1) With a descriptive opening or introduction. 

(2) With dialogue. 

(3) By plunging straight into the action. 

All three methods should (1) arouse interest; 
(2) strike the keynote of the story. 

(1) With an Introduction or Descriptive 
Opening 

The old-fashioned introduction, which consisted of 
one or more paragraphs of moralizing or philosophy, 
having only an indirect bearing on the story itself, is 
no longer in favor. One must be prepared, however, 
for reaction, and as this method may return to favor 
at some future time, it may be as well to quote one or 
two examples. 

“ The mental features discoursed of as the analyti¬ 
cal are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. 
We know of them, among other things, that they are 
always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, 
48 


The Composition of the Short Story 

a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong 
man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such 
exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories 
the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles.” 
(The Murders in the Rue Morgue .—Edgar Allan Poe.) 

(This introduction continues on these lines for 
no less than 1,100 words, and ends: 

“ The narrative which follows will appear to the 
reader somewhat in the light of commentary upon the 
propositions just advanced.”) 

“We can be but partially acquainted even with the 
events which actually influence our course through 
life, and our final destiny. There are innumerable 
other events — if such they may be called — which 
come close upon us, yet pass away without actual 
results, or even betraying their near approach, by the 
reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. 
Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life 
would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or dis¬ 
appointment, to afford us a single hour of true 
serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from 
the secret history of David Swan.” (David Swan , by 
Nathaniel Hawthorne.) 

“ It is a terribly easy thing to fall into — imper¬ 
ceptibly to glide into — evil-doing, and once embarked 
on the slippery descent, there is no telling how low 
one may descend. This, the moral of the story of 
Mr. Bostock, is, in accordance with modem practice, 
placed at the beginning of the story instead of at the 
end, which our grandfathers considered the proper 
49 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


place. Nowadays we get the moral over and out of the 
way as soon as possible and find it good riddance.” 
(Mr. Bostock’s Backsliding , by Arthur Morrison.) 

It is about fifteen years since Arthur Morrison 
wrote the above and today it would be true to say 
we have dispensed with the moral altogether. It may 
still be implicit in the story, but any statement of it is 
unfashionable. 

The introduction per se , then, although occa¬ 
sionally used by well-known writers, is best avoided 
by the beginner today, except in a form so brief and 
elliptical that it becomes a mere literary 66 pause for 
breath ” before launching into the story proper. As, 
for example: 

“ There are murders with a preface of twisted 
emotions and insane obsession. The chronicling of 
these, the unravelling of the threads of cause and 
effect, are left to a Dostoievsky. But the story of 
Bill Emmot is quite a simple one. Shortly after six 
o’clock of a summer evening he sat in the bar of 
‘ The Plume of Feathers,’ ” etc. (The End of the Car, 
by Eric Maschwitz.) 

The “ story within a story ” obviously requires an 
introduction. This popular form is rather like a nut 
which has to be cracked before it can be eaten and 
enables the reader to settle down comfortably for the 
real yarn. It is also a useful device to convey the 
50 


The Composition of the Short Story 

setting and general circumstances which lead up to 
the story. 

The descriptive opening is probably the most popu¬ 
lar method of beginning a short story. It must not be 
dull, stodgy, conventional or commonplace, nor put 
the reader to any mental effort to get a grip of the 
story. It must be terse and crisp and stimulate the 
reader’s interest at once. The descriptive opening 
may be used to convey setting or atmosphere, or a 
combination of all three. 

(a) To convey character: 

“ Miss Winifred Goode sat in her garden in the 
shade of a clipped yew, an unopened novel on her 
lap, and looked at the gabled front of the Tudor 
house that was hers and had been her family’s for 
many generations. In that house, Dun’s Hall, in that 
room beneath the southernmost gable, she had been 
born. From that house, save for casual absences rarely 
exceeding a month in duration, she had never stirred. 
All the drama, such as it was, of her life had been 
played in that house, in that garden. Up and down 
the parapeted stone terrace walked the ghosts of all 
those who had been dear to her — her father, a vague 
but cherished memory, her mother, dead three years 
since, to whose invalid and somewhat selfish needs she 
had devoted all her full young womanhood.” (The 
Conqueror — William J. Locke.) 

“ Mrs. Poulteney-Beelbrow is the kind of woman 

51 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

who drips with refinement. Everything else has been 
squeezed out of her. Even her hair, which once was 
red, has been dried to a rusty grey. Her narrow face is 
pinched and bloodless; the lines of her figure blurred 
by shapeless and colorless materials, as though she 
resented any suggestion of organic functioning, as 
though blood itself were not quite 4 nice.’ ” (Mrs. 
Beelbrow’s Lions — Stacy Aumonier.) 

(b) To CONVEY setting: 

“Just past the Trafalgar Hotel, which overhangs 
the river at East Greenwich, there runs an alley with a 
double row of small houses facing each other eye to 
eye. The backs of those on the south side are hemmed 
in by a huddle of miscellaneous buildings — that 
might have been shot out of a rubbish tip, save for the 
two at the far end, from the upper windows of which 
one may catch a glimpse of the serene, flower-bordered 
walks and mulberry trees of Trinity Hospital gardens. 

“ But the houses on the river side are pierced by 
alleys and arches, revealing a strip, or half lemon, of 
silvery light, crossed and recrossed by sienna-tinted 
sails, fractions of great steamers trailing pennants of 
smoke, or the whole body of a Tilbury Lighterage 
Tug with its striped yellow and red funnel; each pic¬ 
ture set deep in a framework of blackened buildings. 

44 It was in the upper room of one of these riverside 
houses, built of black, overlapping timber, that Dor 
lived . . (The Goldfish — Elinor Mordaunt.) 

44 At six o’clock the back streets were dark and 

52 


The Composition of the Short Story 

black; but once in the Bethnal Green Road, blots and 
flares of gas and naphtha shook and flickered till 
every slimy cobble in the cartway was silver tipped.” 
(Three Rounds, by Arthur Morrison, from Tales of 
Mean Streets.) 

(c) TO CONVEY ATMOSPHERE (AND THEME) : 

“ The laboratory was empty, and in darkness save 
for the night shimmer which peered down through its 
slanted skylights. A place of life and death, this 
laboratory. A haunted place. The ghosts of a thou¬ 
sand nameless explorers into the dim territories of 
science seemed hovering about the phosphorescent 
marble of that long desk-like shelf over which John 
Cartwright would bend, hour after hour, among his 
pallid retorts, and his stacked test-tubes and the Bunsen 
burners his steady hand kindled to blue cones of steady 
flame.” ( Marriner’s Law, by Gilbert Frankau.) 


(c) TO CONVEY ATMOSPHERE (AND SETTING) : 

“ The still air of the tropic night hung listless and 
langorous. A host of nameless insects wheeled in a 
dusty halo around the blackened glass of the oil lamp 
that swung from a beam and beat against the wooden 
walls. Beyond the verandah-rail the blackness stretched 
like a cloth of jet in which no star glimmered. In that 
eerie silence, Donald Bowen sensed the electricity with 
which the atmosphere was charged.” (The Opal Ring, 
by Edmund Snell.) 


53 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

( d ) To convey information: 

This, generally speaking, is a poor opening, and a 
sign of weakness. In nine cases out of ten it is neces¬ 
sary to place before the reader certain facts which 
do not come into the categories of setting or char¬ 
acter. Whenever possible, these facts should be 
deftly inserted into the story while it is in motion. A 
much more realistic effect is obtained by conveying 
information incidentally . It is very rarely that this 
becomes impossible and that it is found necessary to 
prelude the story with a paragraph of detail. When 
it cannot be avoided, the facts must be made 
interesting . 

An opening paragraph on the lines of the follow¬ 
ing is the kind of thing to avoid: 

“ My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at 
Trentham in Straffordshire, my father being employed 
in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I was 
three years old, and my father when I was five, my 
uncle, George Eden, then adopting me as his own son. 
He was a single man, self-educated and well-known in 
Birmingham as an enterprising journalist; he educated 
me generously, fired my ambition to succeed in the 
world, and at his death, which happened four years 
ago, left me his entire fortune, a matter of about five 
hundred pounds after all outgoing charges were paid. 
I was then eighteen.” 


54 


The Composition of the Short Story 

But if the pill be sugared sufficiently the reader 
will swallow it readily enough. 

The above paragraph was, as a matter of fact, 
prefaced by the following: 

“ I set this story down, not expecting it will he 
believed, but, if possible, to prepare a way of escape 
for the next victim. He, perhaps, may profit by my 
misfortune. My own case, I know, is hopeless, and 
I am now in some measure prepared to meet my fate.” 

In justice to Mr. H. G. Wells, who wrote this story 
(The Story of the late Mr. Elvesham ),* I must point 
out that the bald, unvarnished statement of his sec¬ 
ond paragraph is a deliberate and clever device to 
impart an atmosphere of reality to the story. 

Unless, then, there is some special reason for pre¬ 
senting the reader with a paragraph of facts, the 
writer will do better to distribute them throughout 
the story. There are always plenty of suitable open¬ 
ings to convey information to the reader without 
cramming them down his throat. 

Character, setting and atmosphere are so often 
skillfully dovetailed into the opening passages of a 
story that it is practically impossible to separate 
them. 


In The Country of the Blind. 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


(2) Dialogue 

This is not such a common method of breaking the 
ice as is generally supposed. Of a total of seventy- 
two stories published in eight magazines for July, 
1923, only eight stories begin with a conversational 
opening. 

The dialogue opening must be done well or not at 
all. Nothing grimaces at the editor so much as a 
feeble dialogue commencement. 

The kind of story that is best served by a dialogue 
opening is the light humorous love story. It must 
be remembered that dialogue is not used for its own 
sake, but to convey character, setting or incident. 
Character, for example, is revealed by the following 
dialogue opening: 

“ ‘ I don’t believe all these stories about German 
atrocities,’ came from the paler of the two youths on 
my left.” (Jules Schumacher — Englishman, by Gil¬ 
bert Frankau.) 

Later chapters deal more fully with the revelation 
of character by dialogue. 

Dialogue may also be used to convey setting and, 
more frequently, incident. A dialogue opening 
attracts the eye and, properly exploited, represents 
66 human interest,” thereby fulfilling one of the two 
56 


The Composition of the Short Story 

chief functions of the opening, viz., arousing the 
reader’s interest. 

(3) By plunging straight into the action 

There is a marked tendency among present-day 
editors to favor this method. The story should begin 
as one editor has said, on the threshold of the plot if 
not in the middle of it. This typical magazine form 
allows for no preliminary survey of setting or char¬ 
acter, and thus imposes on the writer the obligation 
of weaving deftly into the fabric of the story as it 
proceeds the various aspects of character or back¬ 
ground that the reader must be made aware of. 

This method of beginning the story is easily 
mastered, as will be seen from a glance at the maga¬ 
zines, and it should certainly form part of the young 
writer’s equipment. This is a typical opening: 

“ Fred Baisley turned quickly into Queen Street, 
almost ran the last fifty yards of his way, and whistling 
‘ Dixie ’ with short-breathed fervor, opened the door 
of his own shop.” (Antiques for Two, by Bohun 
Lynch.) 

All these methods of beginning a short story are 
liable to overlapping. Indeed, if the story requires 
it, the professional writer will dovetail setting, char¬ 
acter and action into the first paragraph itself. For 
example: 


57 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


“An obese Chinaman crouched at his window in 
one of the weather-board houses leaning towards each 
other across the narrow alley-way of Cherry Garden 
Pier. The dirty blind was half down, but he sat 
pressed against the wall at the side of it, peering 
through the crack, well out of sight; out of mind, too, 
for no one had a thought of Sing A1 Wen being in 
that upper room of his, sacred to Fan-tan and opium, 
at six o’clock on a hot summer’s evening.”* 

Note that in this one opening paragraph (1) the 
action begins. 

46 A Chinaman crouched at his window, peering 
through the crack ... at six o’clock.” (2) Charac¬ 
ter is conveyed (the suggestion of the 44 obese China¬ 
man ” peeping from behind the blind, with the addi¬ 
tional suggestion of deceit — 44 for no one had a 
thought,” etc.). 

(3) The process of painting in the setting or back¬ 
ground has also begun in these few lines: 44 The 
weather-board houses leaning towards each other 
across the narrow alley-way of Cherry Garden Pier. 
The dirty blind ... the upper room, sacred to Fan- 
tan and opium ... a hot summer’s evening.” 

This — in a word — is craftsmanship. Only by 
a careful study of other writers’ work may this skill 
in the manipulation of words and phrases, sentences 

* Peepers All , by Elinor Mordaunt. 

58 


The Composition of the Short Story 

and paragraphs, be acquired by the beginner. But it 
is well worth while. 

Occasionally the opening of the story is designed 
simply to catch the reader’s eye. This bid for the 
reader’s interest usually takes the form of an un¬ 
expected statement, epigram, paradox, a crisp, short 
sentence or a fragment of witty dialogue. Many 
well-known writers are fond of this method, and 
there is no objection to the beginner adopting the 
device, provided he can handle it skillfully enough. 

“ Charlie had no true vice in him. All the same, a 
man may be over-taxed, over-harassed, over-driven, 
over-pricked and over-starved right up to the edge; 
and the fascination of the big space below may easily 
pull him over.” (The Song, by May Edginton.) 

“ It was the maddest and most picturesque hotel at 
which we had ever stopped.” (The Bat and Belfry 
Inn, Alan Graham.) 

“ I am quite aware that in giving you this story just 
as I was told it I shall incur the charge of downright 
and deliberate lying.” (Major Wilbraham , Hugh 
Walpole.) 

“ This is quite a simple story, but it is about a lord.” 
(The Shameless Behavior of a Lord , Michael Arlen.) 

“ Baldy Woods reached for the bottle, and got it.” 
(Hearts and Crosses, 0. Henry.) 

44 He wished he were dead. It was not a phrase, a 
verbal extravagance; he wished it.” (With Intent to 
Defraud, Leonard Merrick.) 

59 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

“ The financier was cracking walnuts when the 
curate arrived.” (The Favorite Plot, Leonard Merrick.) 

“ Mr. Jobson awoke with a Sundayish feeling, prob¬ 
ably due to the fact that it was Bank Holiday.” (Fine 
Feathers, from Ship’s Company, by W. W. Jacobs.) 

In a series of complete stories a similarity of open¬ 
ing is a device that helps to give unity to the whole. 
The well-known Night Watchman openings of W. W. 
Jacobs provide a case in point. 

How shall I begin my story? is a question that can 
only be decided by the requirements of the story 
itself. A study of the methods outlined in this chap¬ 
ter, amplified, as always, by a wide survey of cur¬ 
rent fiction, and the methods favored by successful 
writers, gives the young writer a fairly wide range, 
and it should not be difficult to come to a decision. 
The main points to bear in mind are: 

The opening must arouse the reader’s interest 
at once; 

should serve a definite purpose (convey setting 
or character or information, or a blend of 
them); and 

should, if possible, strike the keynote of the 
story as a whole. 

Above all — Don’t be conventional. 


60 


The Composition of the Short Story 

(2) The Body of the Story 

A rough division of the short story into three 
parts — opening, body, and end — has this dis¬ 
advantage. It may lead the beginner to imagine that 
short stories split up naturally into these three com¬ 
ponent parts. Nothing could be farther from the 
truth. A clear line of demarcation very seldom 
exists; in fact, so often do all three merge into each 
other that it is impossible to say where one begins 
and the other ends. This is true of all the character¬ 
istics of the short story, setting, plot, character, inci¬ 
dent, emotion — all are so subtly blended into one 
artistic whole as to be inseparable. You cannot take 
a short story to pieces as you would a machine. 

Nevertheless, it is still possible to examine the 
materials which go to the making of a story, provided 
that one always bears in mind that there is no fixed 
pattern and that there exists an endless variety in 
composition. When the first short story was written 
there were no rules nor traditions to govern its shape 
or form; the short story, like any other form of 
artistic expression, has had to develop and shape 
itself as it went along. Today the young writer may 
see for himself what constitutes a short story. Noth¬ 
ing is to be gained by a study of formulae and defini¬ 
tions; but an intelligent application of the general 


61 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


principles which are so plentifully illustrated in the 
work of established authors will prove invaluable. 

The plot is the skeleton of the story. One of the 
most difficult problems which faces the young author 
is that of putting flesh on its bones. The majority of 
beginners err in the direction of excess. They write 
too much, and what they write is usually so badly 
proportioned that the real merit of their plot is 
obscured. As one critic has said, the story sprawls 
like a jelly-fish all over the page. 

It is not a matter of good writing or bad. Short 
story writing does not require fine writing; but some¬ 
thing infinitely more difficult — selection, discrimina¬ 
tion, and very often drastic amputation. Every word 
must tell; every phase of the story must be sharp 
and distinct. Charles Lamb once described a charac¬ 
ter in fiction as a 66 ratherish ” person; the short story 
is not the place for 64 ratherish ” people. All its 
characters, emotions, incidents, must stand out in 
sharp relief. Above all, something must always be 
happening. The story must 44 march,” and the pace 
is a gradually increasing one until the catastrophe or 
climax. Every paragraph — sometimes nearly every 
sentence — should carry the story a distinct step 
forward. 

It may reasonably be argued that it is often neces¬ 
sary to convey to the reader a certain amount of 
62 


The Composition of the Short Story 


information and explanation in addition to the back¬ 
ground and setting, “ local color,” etc. This is quite 
true; but all this should be done as quickly as pos¬ 
sible in order to clear the stage, as it were, for the 
unfolding of the plot. Long-winded explanations and 
descriptions are out of place; the process is a much 
more subtle one. An adjective, the deft insertion of 
an adjectival clause — all these are put in as the 
story progresses. With the art that conceals art the 
reader is enabled to form a clear mental picture of a 
scene or a character. A direct statement is nearly 
always avoided. It is the important short story prin¬ 
ciple of indirect suggestion being better than direct 
description. 

To take an elementary illustration from Arthur 
Morrison’s entertaining story, Mr. Bostock’s Back¬ 
sliding , in which it is necessary to bring to the notice 
of the reader the existence of a prison in the neigh¬ 
borhood, note how the mention of it is skillfully 
tucked into the early part of the story. 

Describing Scarbourne, 

“ the most genteel town on the English coast, where 
every male visitor positively must change all his 
clothes at least three times a day, and no lady must 
be seen to wear anything twice,” 


63 


Short Story Writing for Profit 
the author continues: 

“ No place on earth basks in a more sacred odor 
of perfect respectability than this blessed spot, with 
nothing to mar its bliss but the presence of a vulgar 
convict prison a few miles inland. . . .” 

It is not necessary to describe everything in detail. 
As in a clever black and white drawing where the 
gaps are adequately filled by the eye, so in fiction the 
reader’s memory, aided by a subconscious associa¬ 
tion of ideas, completes the picture. You may remem¬ 
ber Chaucer’s friar who, before sitting down by the 
fireside, chased away the cat. You do not require 
any explanation to understand that the friar had 
chosen the coziest comer for himself. To read of a 
man wiping his forehead with a large red handker¬ 
chief is a better way of introducing the red handker¬ 
chief than by saying the man had a red handkerchief 
in his pocket. All these little details — often of 
great significance — should be worked into the main 
thread of the story, viz., the action. 

The body of the story is the story itself. The open¬ 
ing may actually have begun the story; if not, it has 
prepared the way. The reader is (presumably) in 
the right frame of mind, knows what kind of enter¬ 
tainment is in store for him, and, in order to be enter¬ 
tained, is willing to believe in your scene and your 
characters. 


64 


The Composition of the Short Story 

At this point it may occur to the writer that the 
outline of the plot is a very different thing from the 
action of the story. In the plot the sequence of 
events is naturally determined by cause and effect; 
actions and their consequences. In the story the con¬ 
sequences very often have to come first and the 
revelation of the actions which produced them has 
to be delayed till later on in the story; otherwise the 
reader will lose all interest. 

The detective or mystery story is a good instance of 
this. A murder, or a crime, is committed. The 
reader, along with the investigators in the story, is 
baffled and uncertain of the outcome until perhaps 
the very end of the story, when, hey presto! the 
criminal is unmasked. The denouement then reveals 
the steps which led up to the discovery of his identity, 
thus bringing the story to a plausible and satisfying 
conclusion. 

This quality of preserving the reader’s interest is 
simply — suspense. 

How is suspense created? 

We have seen that plot differs from straightfor¬ 
ward narrative in one important respect — complica¬ 
tion. The thread of the story is suddenly twisted. 
Something happens; the story takes a new turn or 
presents an incident which is apparently unforeseen. 
Curiosity is aroused and the foundation is laid for 
65 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


a crisis. The quality of Suspense follows the pres¬ 
entation of as many crises as the story may contain. 
The number of crises is regulated by the requirements 
of the plot. All good short stories contain one crisis; 
the majority contain more than one. When there is 
more than one crisis the dramatic effect should be 
heightened by each succeeding crisis. At the same 
time the action is accelerated. 

This diagram — an elaboration of Elinor Mor- 
daunt’s theory (see page 44) — shows a conception 
of the ordinary short story which may be helpful. By 



66 




The Composition of the Short Story 

“ exposition ” is meant the rise of interest by either 
the statement of the problem or the circumstances 
which lead up to the first crisis. The base line repre¬ 
sents the thread which should run through the entire 
story revealing background, character, atmosphere, 
etc., always carefully subordinated to the main in¬ 
terest of the plot. As previously pointed out, the 
climax may be such as to render any further denoue¬ 
ment unnecessary. The climax and denouement are 
dealt with more fully later. 

For the purpose of examining the structural com¬ 
position of the body of the story, I propose to take 
the typical form in which character is overshad¬ 
owed by plot. It was Robert Louis Stevenson’s rather 
drastic theory, by the way, that character should 
always be subordinate to incident. 

Frequently the plot idea develops from character 
and environment. Many of the best writers prefer 
this development of plot from character to the 
development of character from plot. It is a point 
which every writer must decide for himself. Usu¬ 
ally one is guided by the type of story under con¬ 
sideration. Stories with plenty of action and incident 
are primarily plot stories in which character is of 
secondary importance; while in stories of character 
plot is naturally subordinate to the main interest. It 
is often difficult to distinguish the two types in the 
67 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


finished product. Character and plot are so closely 
interwoven and so dependent on each other that it is 
sometimes impossible to guess whether the writer 
began with his plot or his characters. 

The amount of incident in short stories naturally 
varies tremendously. On the one hand there is the 
typical magazine action-story in which enough inci¬ 
dent is often crammed into 5,000 words to fill a full- 
length novel; and on the other, the study of character, 
or sketch, in which there is scarcely any incident at 
all. The character story is often reduced to the level 
of a picture in words, although it need not be. Stacy 
Aumonier’s The Funny Mans Day , for example, is 
a delightful revelation of character in which incident 
plays a large part. But, generally speaking, the 
story which depends on plot for its effect is the type 
which the young writer should first study and experi¬ 
ment with. While the static story (character) has its 
market and is a satisfying form of expression, the 
dynamic story (action) is more readily saleable. 
And as Stevenson himself wrote: 

“ In character-studies the pleasure we take is criti¬ 
cal; we watch, we approve, we smile at incongruities, 
we are moved to sudden heats of sympathy with 
courage, suffering, or virtue. But the characters are 
still themselves, they are not us; the more clearly they 
are depicted, the more widely do they stand away 
from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us back 
68 


The Composition of the Short Story 

into our place as a spectator. ... It is not character 
but incident that woos us out of our reserve. Some¬ 
thing happens as we desire it to happen to ourselves; 
some situation that we have long dallied with in fancy, 
is realized in the story with enticing and appropriate 
details. Then we forget the characters; then we push 
the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in our 
own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, 
and then only, de we say that we have been reading 
a romance.” 

Let us deal, then, with the story of incident. The 
first step is to take the plot outline and block it out 
roughly on the lines of the diagram on page 66. At 
first the young writer may find it not at all easy to 
select the crises in the story; but it should not be diffi¬ 
cult to pick out the main crisis and work backwards 
from that point. Here it will be found that there are 
two kinds of incidents. One is the incident that 
belongs to the plot proper and the other the incident 
which has to be introduced to carry the story 
smoothly and naturally from one stage to another. 
The latter is invented by the writer as required, and 
has been called the 64 developing incident.” 

The author knows the incidents of his plots before 
he begins to write, but has to improvise 64 develop¬ 
ing ” incidents as the story crystallizes into being. 

In The Looking Glass , by J. D. Beresford, the 
story of Rachel Deane, a young girl who goes to visit 
69 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


an old aunt of the same name whom she has never 
seen, we find Rachel standing in front of the looking- 
glass: 

“ With a graceful habitual gesture she put up her 
hand and lightly touched her cheeks with a soft, caress¬ 
ing movement of her finger tips.” 

This is a “ developing ” or contributory incident 
on which emphasis happens to be laid by the fact of 
its coming at the end of the first section of the story. 
The aunt proves to be 66 a raddled, repulsive crea¬ 
ture ” whose 66 hollow cheeks stiff with powder, lips 
brightened to a fantastic scarlet,” assist in indicating 
that the old lady “ had actually persuaded herself 
into the delusion that she still had the appearance of 
a young girl.” To sensitive Rachel’s dismay, her 
aunt insists on their remarkable physical resem¬ 
blance. This preys on the young girl’s mind so, that 
when we read that the aunt, pausing before the mir¬ 
ror, lifted 

“ her wasted hand and delicately touched her whitened 
hollow cheek with the tips of her heavily jewelled 
fingers,” 

we are not surprised that “ Rachel stared in horror. 
. . . Because of that perfect duplication of her own 
characteristic pose and gesture, the likeness had 
flashed out clear and unmistakable.” 

70 


The Composition of the Short Story 

This is the 66 plot ” incident. The 66 developing ” 
incident which preceded it is subordinate, but neces¬ 
sary to the unfolding of the story. It adds emphasis 
and is also a link in the chain of interest. 

From this simple illustration the function of the 
“ developing ” incident may be easily understood. It 
is dependent on a main plot incident and plays a 
highly important technical part in the story. 

A clear understanding of the difference between 
plot incident and developing incident will help the 
young writer to plan out the most difficult structural 
problem of the body of the story. This is sequence . 
On sequence depends the success of his efforts to 
create suspense. As soon as a satisfactory sequence- 
synopsis is drafted out it will readily be seen between 
which points in the story the reader must be kept in 
doubt as to the next complication, whether it be yet 
another crisis in the story, or the climax itself. 

Not that it always requires deliberate effort to cre¬ 
ate suspense. Very often suspense is created nat¬ 
urally by the action of the story. But although the 
reader should not be able to say to himself with cer¬ 
tainty, “ I know what’s coming next,” the effect to 
aim at is to produce in the reader’s mind a sort of 
premonition of what is going to happen, so that when 
the next step is revealed it appears to be the perfectly 
natural logical outcome of all that has preceded it. 

71 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


The reader must not feel certain of the outcome or he 
will lose interest, but there must be sufficient clue in 
what he has read already to make the outcome 
appear inevitable. This applies forcibly to the chief 
period of suspense which immediately precedes the 
climax. 

A word of warning is necessary at this point. The 
writer must not deliberately mystify the reader unless 
it is an integral feature of the plot to do so. Suspense 
will come about in satisfactory measure as a result 
of effective disposition of incidents in their fitting 
order. The problem is not one of suspense but of 
sequence. 

The Plot Book will come in handy here. Compare 
the plot summaries you have made with the stories as 
they appeared. Note the difference in the sequence 
of incident; how in the actual story a revelation is 
delayed, how the reader is kept in doubt until the 
critical moment arrives, and so on. When it is a 
question of applying the principle in practice there is 
no infallible rule. An 66 unconscious sense of judg¬ 
ment ” will come to the young writer’s rescue; and, 
after all, he is the one best qualified to solve the little 
problems of the story that is exclusively his own. 
And the problem is usually much simpler than may 
be imagined. 

A more difficult problem is concerned with emo- 
72 


The Composition of the Short Story 


tion. It is a first principle that the short story must 
create some kind of emotion in the reader, whether it 
be sympathy (in its true sense), horror, joy, laughter, 
pathos, excitement, or surprise. Anyone with any 
sort of story-telling instinct can scarcely fail to pro¬ 
duce some such effect on the ordinary reader; but a 
careful balancing and arrangement of all the mate¬ 
rial that goes to produce emotion is a prime need of 
good story-telling. Here again the indirect method 
is more effective than the direct. To describe the 
effect of an apparition say, on one of the characters, 
is more vivid than to describe the apparition itself. 

“ I could not repress a cry of astonishment.” 

66 He stared, fascinated.” 

66 Her cheeks paled; her limbs stiffened; she was 
too frightened to utter a sound.” 

Fiction is full of sentences like these. Carefully 
handled, they heighten the dramatic effect in a way 
that direct unadorned description could not produce. 
This will not, I hope, prejudice the young writer 
against a plain, straightforward style of writing. It 
is in the manner of telling a story that the indirect 
method is sometimes to be preferred. As far as style 
(which we come to later) is concerned, there is noth¬ 
ing to beat simplicity. 

How is emotion produced? Once more mere 
formulae are useless. A study of good fiction will 
73 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

reveal the use of a number of literary devices which 
may profitably be imitated. The use of sarcasm, 
exclamations or irritation, exasperation, assist in 
creating emotional effect. Gesture is frequently 
expressive of emotion. Thus: 

He clenched his fists as he . . . 

The invalid shook his head impatiently. 

Johnson shrugged his shoulders. 

His hand trembled as he opened the letter. 

“ I cannot deal with it now,” said Owen, wav¬ 
ing him aside. 

She snatched at the paper. 

The girl held to him with stiffened fingers 
while a tattoo struck the door. 

Dialogue is another useful device to secure emo¬ 
tion. The use of the dash to split up speech into 
fragments is suggestive of emotion. 

44 Henry gasped. 

“ 4 You mean — Vitongo?’ 

“ 4 The whole outfit.’ 

44 4 Vitongo-!’ 

44 4 What t’hell else did you expect?’ ”* 

The dash gives a kind of gasping effect to the 
words, and the short, nervous sentences strengthen the 

* From The Pagan, by John Russell. (In Dark Places .) 

74 



The Composition of the Short Story 

impression. The value of restraint in fiction should, 
however, never be overlooked. Sometimes more can 
be said in one word than in two or three. 

Read as many good short stories as you can. Have a 
pencil handy, and when you come to a passage that is 
especially moving or exciting, mark it in the margin. 
Don’t look for such passages deliberately, note only 
those which grip your interest as you read them. 
Then, when you have finished with the story as a 
reader, come back to it as a student. Note how the 
effect is produced. If the passage defies satisfactory 
analysis, put the story away and write that part of it 
in your own words. When done, compare your own 
effort with the original. This method is invaluable to 
the beginner, enabling him, as it does, to approach a 
problem from the real starting point. It will also 
show how vitally important is economy in words. 
0. Henry had this wonderful gift of economy in nar¬ 
rative amounting to genius. W. W. Jacobs has it. It 
is a distinctive mark of the true short story writer. 

Maupassant’s famous short story The Necklace is 
an admirable illustration of what to omit. A man 
and his wife in humble circumstances are invited to 
a big official dance. The young husband spends all 
his money on a frock for her to wear, but she has no 
jewels. At last she borrows from a friend a superb 
necklace of diamonds and goes happy to the ball. 
75 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


Arriving home, she finds to her horror that the neck¬ 
lace is lost! Their frantic search and inquiries prove 
unavailing. To gain time they write to Mme. For- 
estier, the friend, saying that the clasp is broken and 
they are having it mended. At the end of a week 
they have lost all hope. The husband sells all he has, 
assumes ruinous obligations compromising the rest of 
his life, in order to replace the necklace. He raises 
36,000 francs, and a similar necklace is bought and 
restored to Mme. Forestier. Then they set to work to 
pay off their colossal debt. For ten years they endure 
dire poverty and harsh discomfort, but at last every¬ 
thing is paid off. Then one day the friend meets the 
wife in the street. “ Oh, my poor Mathilde,” she 
cries, “how you have changed!” The poor woman 
then tells the whole story. “ Mme. Forestier, strongly 
moved, took her two hands. 6 Oh, my poor Mathilde! 
Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most 
five hundred francs!’ ” 

The length of this story is 3,000 words. It ends 
with the sentence quoted in the above summary. 
Observe how much is omitted here. Maupassant 
does not go on to tell how Mme. Forestier returned 
the necklace, nor point the moral of the wasted ten 
years of laborious effort and toil. It is true that they 
could not be restored like the necklace, but Maupas¬ 
sant knew what to omit in the interest of emotional 
76 


The Composition of the Short Story 

effect. What to leave out is, indeed, almost as impor¬ 
tant as what to put in a short story. There can be— 
and in most stories often are—left out, for instance, 
big slices of time. The story is not necessarily a con¬ 
secutive narrative. The scene may be switched some¬ 
where else without any explanation on the writer’s 
part. A single row of asterisks will serve to indicate 
either lapse of time or change of scene and is a device 
frequently employed in the modern short story. 

The action, too, should be stripped of all unneces¬ 
sary or irrelevant matter. 

This, it will be remembered, is one of the features 
of the short story which particularly distinguishes it 
from the novel. Constant revision and deletion are 
the best means of reducing a story to proper propor¬ 
tions. Don’t be afraid of leaving something to the 
imagination of the reader. As soon as the story has 
got into its stride avoid all explanations and discus¬ 
sions that do not help the action along. Whatever 
you do don’t put the brake on — it is fatal. Note, 
for example, the rapidity of the action in the follow¬ 
ing passage from a story by the late Agnes and 
Egerton Castle (Enchanted Casements). 

“ Like an arrow from the bow he sped after 
Lariliere, who had shaken hands with his host, and 
was disappearing into the hotel portals. 

“ Julian caught him up in the vestibule. He stood 
77 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


aside while the chief Precursor accepted the services 
of one waiter to assist him into his driving coat, and 
of another for the lighting of his cigar. Then a dog¬ 
cart, scarcely less dashing than his own, was driven 
round, and Lariliere, mounting, took the reins from 
the hands of the groom. 

“ As the man prepared to jump up beside his master, 
Julian was down the steps in two leaps and arrested 
him. 

“ 4 One moment, Monsieur de Lariliere! One word.’ 

44 The pale glassy eyes looked down at him, and he 
thought there was a flicker in them, gone as soon as 
come, of fear. 

44 4 Speak quick, then,’ said the polished bully, at 
his most insolent, 4 for I have a rendez-vous .’ 

44 4 One word is enough,’ said Julian. ‘Coward!’” 

It may seem superfluous to advise the beginner to 
remember he is telling a story, but a wide experience 
of MSS. indicates plainly that such advice is gen¬ 
erally needed. So many amateur efforts bury the 
actual story beneath a mass of “ clever ” writing that 
few editors will take the trouble to disentangle it. It 
cannot be too often emphasized that the story’s the 
thing. 

Conveying the story to the reader is, as Gilbert 
Frankau has expressed it, best done by a series of 
66 word-pictures.” 

44 The whole process of story-writing,” says the 
author of Peter Jameson , 44 is a conveyance of pictures 
78 


The Composition of the Short Story 

from the mind of the writer to the mind of his reader. 
A complete visualization of the story he means to tell, 
of the characters who play their part in it and of the 
local color in which those characters play their part, 
is absolutely necessary. A writer must be able to see 
in his mind’s eye the whole story. It must be as 
visible to him as the wood of his writing-desk or the 
walls of his study. He must know his characters and 
his scenes so well that he can describe every feature of 
them. 

“ This visualization or seeing process can be either 
real or imaginary; that is to say, the writer may either 
describe places and people actually known to him, or 
places and people that only exist in his imagination. 
But in either case, the conveyance of these pictures to 
the reader’s mind must be so sharp that the impression 
is always real." 

This pictorial conception of the writer’s art may be 
usefully remembered when the young writer gets into 
the stride of the story. Making 64 word-pictures ” is 
a valuable literary exercise. Anything that strikes 
the writer’s imagination, a girl’s face, a room, a man 
ploughing a field, a lighthouse at night, a beggar in 
the street, all provide subjects for 44 word-pictures.” 
Self-criticism is difficult but will be made easier by 
putting aside one’s efforts until they are forgotten. 
Then, when they are re-read they should instantly 
convey a mental picture. If the picture is vague, it 
fails. It should jump to the eye, as the French say. 

79 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

Cultivate picturization in fiction — it is well worth 
while. 

So far, so good. But there is so much that cannot 
be taught that with these few generalizations I must 
leave the subject of writing the body of the story. In 
many ways it is the most vital part of the storyteller’s 
craft, but beyond drawing attention to established 
methods and stimulating a study of stories by good 
authors one can teach very little. It is one thing to 
take a manuscript, indicate its defects and show how 
they may be remedied, condensation here, deletion 
there, dialogue in this place, rewriting on different 
lines in that place; but in so plastic a medium as the 
short story it is impossible to lay down any number 
of fixed rules and regulations. Particularly is this 
true of the body of the story. Beginning and end 
have functions which may be more readily defined, 
but, provided that the writer tells his story in such a 
way as to hold the reader’s interest, there can be little 
adverse criticism of his manner of telling it. The 
average reader is the ultimate critic, and if he is 
satisfied there cannot be much wrong with the story. 
Molere knew what he was about when he read his 
manuscripts to his cook. 


80 


The Composition of the Short Story 
(3) The Climax 

The construction of the final movement of the 
short story puts the writer’s powers to the severest test 
of all. The ending will leave a decisive impression 
on the reader — indeed, it is intended to do so — 
and whether this be satisfactory or unsatisfactory 
depends on the writer’s skill in handling the most 
important situation in his story, the climax. 

Everything leads up to the climax. All the threads 
of interest are gathered up and merge into the 
66 point ” of the story. The reader should feel a 
definite emotional shock, whether it be surprise at the 
final revelation, satisfaction at the triumph of right 
over might, horror at the tragic outcome, or thrill at 
reaching the high-water mark of excitement. At this 
point the writer, to use a colloquialism, dare not let 
the reader down, except at the risk of ruining the 
story. 

Short stories end in various ways, according to 
differences of kind. There is the surprise-ending 
story in which the literary bomb bursts in practically 
the last line; the mystery or detective story which 
usually needs an explanatory denouement recapit¬ 
ulating the circumstances of the problem, and untying 
all the knotted threads of the story; the conventional 
happy ending of the love story; the philosophic end- 


81 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


ing, which is the modern equivalent of the now out- 
of-date moral; and many others which should be 
familiar to all assiduous readers of fiction. 

Each requires different treatment, but all require 
the most careful handling. As we have seen, the 
action is accelerated to its highest speed at a point 
immediately preceding the climax. Every word is 
vital; a false movement will at once snap the taut 
elastic of the reader’s interest. Every sentence must 
be subjected to the most critical examination. 

The climax, and that part of the story which leads 
up to it, are, in the opinion of many professional 
writers, best written at white heat. Some authors 
prefer to write their endings first. This plan has the 
merit of fixing the desired final impression and 
enabling the writer to balance the remainder of the 
story. An artistically perfect short story must be 
well balanced; and the balance of a story undoubt¬ 
edly hinges on the climax. 

We have seen how suspense naturally follows the 
main crisis, and paves the way for the climax. The 
forces of the story are gathered for the decisive 
moment; the characters are poised ready for their 
fate; the reader is prepared for the outcome, 
although it may be — probably has been — skillfully 
camouflaged. 

The climax must be striking and yet convincing; 

82 


The Composition of the Short Story 

the reader must be denied the opportunity of criti¬ 
cizing it, even unconsciously, as “ far-fetched.” It 
must appear inevitable; and in his lightning mental 
review of the incidents of the story the climax must 
appear to be the one logical and satisfying result of 
all that has gone before. 

It must not be prolonged; it should be intense and 
brief, released, as it were, by a literary trigger. It 
should have all the precise crispness of the end of 
one of Euclid’s propositions. Note how effectively 
the climax is handled in Cap’en Jolly fax’s Gun (see 
page 154). 

Climax is the one point of a short story which can 
be easily identified. It is a kind of high-water mark 
of interest. 

Here again the student should make a careful 
study of the methods of well-known writers, to see 
how climax is handled by experts, and apply the 
knowledge thus gained to his own work. 

Immediately following the climax the reader’s 
interest inevitably relaxes. Suspense is all over; the 
tale is done. Delay is now fatal, and if there is any¬ 
thing more to add it must be done quickly. 

Anything that succeeds the climax is known as 
either Denouement or Conclusion. As we have seen, 
the climax itself may end the story, and thus render 
further denouement and conclusion unnecessary. 

83 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

Sometimes, however, a story will require a word or 
two of final explanation, a neat rounding off, and a 
dismissal of the characters. 

The object of the denouement (untying) is to re¬ 
move any doubts that may linger in the reader’s 
mind; it serves a purely explanatory purpose. Some 
critics assert that as no explanation should be neces¬ 
sary subsequent to the climax, the denouement is not 
properly a feature of the short story, but this is surely 
too hasty a judgment. Many of our best short stories 
have a denouement, which could not conceivably be 
dispensed with, or inserted elsewhere in the story. 
Besides, an artistic effect may often be obtained by 
this means, and add to the quality of the story. 

The denouement is not a separate part of the short 
story, but should be laid on the foundation of 46 key 
sentences ” in the body of the narrative. 46 Key 
sentences ” may be either positive or negative; that is, 
they may provide a genuine clue to the ultimate 
denouement, or a false clue. It is quite a legitimate 
device to lay false clues in order to camouflage the 
real outcome and sustain the reader’s interest. Note, 
for instance, how ingeniously the suggestion of 44 one 
boy at least formed a dark project of hoarding pen¬ 
nies, buying powder, escaping by perilous descent 
from his bedroom window and firing Cap’en Jolly- 
fax’s gun lawlessly in the depth of night,” lays a false 
84 


The Composition of the Short Story 

trail for the reader of Cap 9 en Jollyfax’s Gun* With 
the swift rise of the action to the climax, 66 The gun! 
It was the gun! Somebody had fired it! Those boys 
— those rascal boys, rapscallion boys, cheeky boys, 
plaguey boys, villainous, accursed, infernal boys!” 
the reader, with the key sentence at the back of his 
mind, jumps immediately to the wrong conclusion — 
which is at it should be. 

Any preliminary reference to an incident, scene 
or character that plays an important part late in the 
story, is a 44 key sentence.” 

A keen sense of the dramatic is the best guide to 
devising the denouement and conclusion. The dra¬ 
matic quality of a short story centers almost entirely 
in its last phase. With the speeding up of the action, 
the story joins issue with the drama. It is a tense, 
emotional moment for both writer and reader. 

The beginner should carefully examine a number 
of good short stories and study for himself the treat¬ 
ment of denouement . He will find that it does not 
always necessarily make a disclosure; it may take the 
form of a hint of future events; it may even leave 
the reader in doubt; point a moral; or merely satisfy 
the emotions. But whatever form it may take, it must 
be in harmony with the rest of the story, and be told 
in as few words as possible. 


See Chapter VIII. 


85 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


Conclusion is usually the final polishing touch to 
the short story. Short story writing has, indeed, been 
compared with the art of the lapidary who industri¬ 
ously polishes and polishes his stone. The conclusion 
of a story should leave a pleasant and satisfying taste 
in the reader’s mouth. It is often used as a device to 
46 get rid of the characters,” always a problem for the 
fiction writer. 

Whether a story requires a denouement or con¬ 
clusion or both will naturally depend on the story 
itself. The writer’s judgment will seldom be at fault 
if he has any writing instinct at all. Roughly, dra¬ 
matic stories end at the climax, which is thus identical 
with the conclusion; humorous stories require conclu¬ 
sion, but little or no denouement; mystery stories 
require denouement without a formal conclusion; 
love stories and adventure stories usually feature 
both. But the exceptions are almost as numerous, 
and it is impossible to legislate definitely on a point 
which only the requirements of the individual story 
and the writer’s own judgment can decide. 

The three phases of the ending of a story—climax, 
denouement and conclusion — thus vary with the 
requirements of each individual story. Of the three, 
climax is unquestionably the most important. Usu¬ 
ally, denouement predominates over conclusion, the 
latter being a literary trimming, and often not vital 
86 


The Composition of the Short Story 

to the composition of the story. Sometimes the writer 
may feel that a final touch of characterization is 
necessary, and will thus prolong the conclusion. In 
Eden Phillpott’s story The Rope, a tale of a West- 
country hangman whose rope is stolen from him by 
the desperate wife of the man he is on his way to 
hang, in order to give the condemned man a day or 
two’s grace, the climax — 

“ ‘ Hast heard the great news?’ ” she asked. But he 
had not, and so it happened that Tom West’s wife was 
able to tell how another man — the chap by the name 
of Ned Rivers, a fellow-laborer with her husband — 
had come forward and made a clean breast, and con¬ 
fessed to the slaughter of the sheep,” 

tells the reader all he wants to know, i.e ., that the 
innocent man was saved. No denouement is neces¬ 
sary, but it is plain that the author feels we ought to 
have a final impression of the kindly philosophic 
hangman, and so we have the conclusion: 

“ ’Twas a plot against my Tom,” she said. “ And 
the man went down to the prison yesterday at noon 
and gave himself up for the crime, because his fearful 
remorse after his sin had made him want to die. And 
my Tom will be free come tomorrow week! And 
’twas me as saved his life after all, Hangman Merdle!” 

“And so you did, then,” admitted the executioner. 

87 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

“ And nobody better pleased than me, I’m sure. How s 
your babby?” 

“ He’s all right. And I’ve been allowed to see my 
husband and he’s terrible interested in it all, and will 
be very proud if you can come an’ drink a dish of tea 
along with us and a few neighbors next week.” 

“ Next week? No,” answered the other, handling his 
restored rope. “ If what you tell me be true, I’m free 
to go on to Plymouth by this night’s coach. But when 
business calls me this way again I shall be very 
pleased to have a tell along with you and your chap. 
Let it be a lesson to us all to trust in God and our 
wives, ma’am!” 

A typical use of climax, denouement and conclu¬ 
sion is the final movement of 0. Henry’s Vanity and 
Some Sables (a poor title, by the way). It is the 
story of 64 Kid ” Brady, who has been reformed by 
his sweetheart Molly. Kid hates cheap things. After 
eight months 44 with no symptoms of backsliding ” the 
Kid brings Molly a mysterious parcel. They are 
Russian sables, the real thing, he tells her, worth 
$425. Molly, at first suspicious, calms her doubts. 
Sables are soothing. A detective follows them and 
arrests him on a charge of stealing a thousand-dollar 
set of sables from a house in West Seventh Street. 
Kid indignantly denies it, declares he bought them. 
The detective offers him a chance of proving his 
story by going to the place he bought them from. 

88 


The Composition of the Short Story 


Confused, the Kid admits the theft. They meet 
Policeman Kohen; the detective signs to him for 
assistance. Then: 

“ Sure,” said Kohen, “ I hear about 


Beginning of 
climax. 

those saples dat vas stolen. You say 
you have dem here?” 

Policeman Kohen took the end of 
Molly’s late scarf in his hands and 
looked at it closely. 

“ Once,” he said, “ I sold furs in 
Sixth Avenue. Yes, dese are saples. 
Dey come from Alaska. Dis scarf is 
vort twelve dollars and dis muff-” 

Climax. 

“ Biff,” came the palm of the Kid’s 
powerful hand upon the policeman’s 
mouth. Kohen staggered and rallied. 
Molly screamed. The detective threw 
himself upon Brady and with Kohen’s 
aid got the nippers on his wrist. 

“ The scarf is vort twelve dollars 
and the muff is vort nine dollars,” 
persisted the policeman. “ Vot is dis 
talk of thousand dollars saples?” 

The Kid sat upon a pile of lumber 
and his face turned dark red. 

End of 
climax. 

“ Correct, Solomonski,” he declared 
viciously. “I paid twenty-one dollars 
fifty for the set. I’d rather have got 
six months and not have told it.” 

89 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


“ Me, the swell guy that wouldn’t 
look at anything cheap! I’m a plain 
bluffer. Moll — my salary couldn’t 
spell sables in Russian.” 

Molly cast herself upon his neck. 

“ What do I care for all the sables 
and money in the world?” she cried. 
“ It’s my Kiddy I want. Oh, you 
dear, stuck-up, crazy blockhead!” 

“ You can take dose nippers off,” 
said Kohen to the detective. “ Before 
I leaf de station de report come in 
dat de lady vind her saples — hanging 
in her wardrobe. Young man, I excuse 
you dat punch in my face •— dis von 
time.” 

Ransom handed Molly her furs. Her 
eyes were smiling upon the Kid. She 
Conclusion. wound the scarf and threw the end 

ever her left shoulder with a duchess’s 
(Note how the grace, 

last two para¬ 
graphs “ get “ A couple of young vools,” said 
rid ” of the char- Policeman Kohen to Ransom, “ come 
acters). on away.” 

A type of story already referred to, in which cli¬ 
max, denouement and conclusion are identical, is the 
surprise-ending story. A typical surprise-ending 

story is Michael Arlen’s amusing The Luck of Cap- 
90 


Beginning of 
denouement. 

Explanation. 


Finding of 
“ stolen ” sables 
the disclosure. 

End of denoue¬ 
ment. 


The Composition of the Short Story 


tain Fortune . At a night club, a man and woman 
notice a 64 tall, dark young man whose dark eyes were 
wet with tears.” Their curiosity is aroused, and they 
persuade the stranger to join their table and presently 
to tell his sad story. He begins: 44 My story con¬ 
cerns a man and a woman. The man loved the 
woman.” He describes with emotion her rare beauty, 
charm and distinction, and her ambition. It was to 
shine in politics! She could speak divinely, but she 
simply could not prepare a speech. The man who 
loved her came to the rescue, wrote her speeches for 
her. 44 He was a man of ideas. He had a brain like 
Clapham Junction, going this way and that way, and 
every way at the same time; and he could, no doubt, 
have made a great political name for himself, but he 
was by nature a soldier, and by temperament adven¬ 
turous, so that it pleased him infinitely more to 
4 help ’ the lady of his dreams to political fame rather 
than to bid for it in his own person.” 

44 But another soldier came into her life — the 
most fearless soldier of our time, it has been said. 
But whether it was that he was the most fearless or 
the luckiest, we cannot tell. He himself insists on 
his luck. 4 1 cannot lose,’ he is reported to have 
said, sometimes unhappily. Whatever he touched 
became a jewel in his hand; whatever he ventured, he 
won. A name never expressed a man more perfectly 

91 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

— Victor Fortune! Captain Fortune, V.C., D.S.O., 
M.C., etc. . . ” 

With almost a sob of emotion the stranger 
describes how three weeks later 66 her old friend, 
her 6 helper,’ was stunned to read of the engagement 
of the lady to Captain Fortune, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., 
etc.” He was stunned; then frantically he rushed to 
her house. . . . She was very sorry about it all, she 
said. She was frightfully sorry. But she had fallen 
in love. Victor Fortune. . . . 

66 And so he went away, her friend, never to return. 
He never has returned. He never will return. And 
Captain Fortune married his lady, the lady of his 
dream. . . .” 

The tears 66 smouldered in those dark eyes,” and 
they thought he was going to break down. 66 Of 
course,” he whispered, “ she has never been able to 
make a speech since. How could she? Without her 
old friend she is just a lovely woman, a lovely woman 
whose life centers in her care for Captain Fortune. 
And her old friend has gone out of her life, he who 
loved her and still lives her, never to return, 
never. . . .” 

Silently they watched him go. Then the maitre 
d’hdtel chanced by their table. They asked who he 
was. 

44 That, Madam,” said the agreeable and polished 
92 


The Composition of the Short Story 

M. Risotto, “ is Captain Fortune, the most gallant 
gentleman in England. . . 

No synopsis can do justice to the ingenuity of the 
surprise-ending. 

0. Henry excels in this type of story, but his 
surprise-endings must be studied with care. He was 
a genius, and genius cannot be imitated. Imitations 
of 0. Henry usually prove to be merely glorified 
anecdotes. 

So many short stories end with a sting in their tail, 
that the beginner will do well to make a close study 
of this popular form. It is a type of story not diffi¬ 
cult to write, but the handling of the ending is all- 
important. It must be dramatic, or, to use an Ameri¬ 
canism, it must have 44 punch.” This effect is best 
obtained in as few words as possible. 

Restraint is vital in the handling of the ending. A 
word too much and pathos becomes bathos, tragedy 
becomes farce. I know of no better illustration in 
literature of the value of restraint than the dramatic 
simplicity of Thackeray’s ending to a chapter of 
Vanity Fair: 

“No more firing was heard at Brussels — the pur¬ 
suit rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the 
field and city; and Amelia was praying for George, 
who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through 
his heart.” 


93 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


The ending of a short story brings us back to the 
beginning. It is a new starting-point for the writer. 
The word Finis does not set the seal on his work. Re¬ 
vision is the next step—and a very important one, too. 

A happy minority of authors are spared the neces¬ 
sity of revising their labors, but the number of stories 
that require no revision at all must be exceedingly 
small. The finished product nearly always differs 
slightly from the original conception. Stories have a 
knack of writing themselves. It is, in fact, a common 
occurrence for the writer to decide, while a story is 
in full swing, to recast it entirely. Points crop up 
as one goes along, one situation suggests another, 
characters refuse to be drawn in a certain way — and 
if the alteration be an improvement the story may 
have to be set on different lines. So that when the 
writer has satisfactorily disposed of the ending of his 
story, he must prepare to revise the whole in perhaps 
a new light. 

Even when the story unfolds itself according to 
plan, a hundred and one little touches may be neces¬ 
sary to weld it into one artistic whole. The question 
of proportion, or balance, can never be satisfactorily 
decided until the actual writing is all complete. De¬ 
letions, omissions, condensation, expansion, for all 
of these the story must be carefully tested and 
adjusted. 


94 


The Composition of the Short Story 

The natural anxiety of the writer to 64 get the thing 
finished ” leads many beginners to plunge immedi¬ 
ately into the work of revision. This, I think, is a 
mistake. If possible, the story should be put away 
and not looked at for several days at least. It is im¬ 
possible to revise coolly and judiciously, while one is 
hot with the labor of writing the story. The MS. 
should be buried away for as long as possible, say 
ten days to a fortnight. (Needless to say this does 
not apply to stories which an editor has commis¬ 
sioned, and for which he may be waiting.) Then, 
and then only, should revision be begun. 

This plan has the advantage of enabling the writer 
to view his own work with detachment. With any 
critical acumen at all he will be able to put his finger 
on the weak spots of a story. He will approach the 
story in the role of a reader, and should thereby be 
able to see more readily what finishing touches the 
MS. requires. The correction of mistakes, deletions 
here, compressions there, a word of explanation at 
this point, a descriptive touch at that, all will flow 
more smoothly from his pen as a result of the 
enforced interval between writing and revising. 

Another excellent plan is reading aloud. I know 
of no more effective way of testing the smoothness of 
a story than this. The ear is alert to every harsh¬ 
ness of phrase, awkwardness of construction and gaps 
95 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


in the texture of the story itself. It is, in fact, a 
severe test of the merit of a short story, and no 
opportunity should be lost of reading your efforts 
aloud to a discerning critic. Failing such a friend in 
need, fall back on yourself, and enlist the critical aid 
of your own hearing. 

One word more: the much abused rejection slip, 
which may be all that your early efforts will reap, is 
really a friend in disguise. If all the “ possible ” 
markets for your story indicate a unanimous 66 No,” 
then regard the formal printed slip as a signpost 
pointing to the story. Follow the trail and it will 
bring you to errors of commission or of omission. 
And the latter may be as important as the former. 
Don’t say to yourself: 66 1 can see nothing wrong 
with the story;” but ask yourself: “ Is there anything 
right with it?” 


96 


CHAPTER IV 


CHARACTER 

The importance of 46 human interest ” in the story 
has already been emphasized. And this interest 
reveals itself most prominently in the characters 
themselves. The reader is in some ways more 
interested in the characters than in what happens to 
them; at any rate, it would be true to say that the 
reader must believe in the characters and have sym¬ 
pathy with them before he can go on with the story. 
Even in that type of story which concerns itself least 
with character, viz., the action-story, there must be 
sufficient plausibility and reality about the characters 
to justify their existence. At the other extreme, in 
stories which definitely exploit character as their 
theme, the problem of characterization becomes 
supremely important. 

Character, as we have seen, may be created in a 
variety of ways, by description, suggestion, dialogue, 
and action. Of these the least effective is undoubt¬ 
edly description. The reader will more readily judge 
people by what they say and do than by what is said 
about them by the writer. It must not be thought, 
97 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


however, that description is to be discarded alto¬ 
gether; used in conjunction with other methods it 
can be made very effective. Undoubtedly the reader 
likes to know what the characters look like; and a 
description of physical appearance may usefully 
convey a key to character. 

Charles Dickens, although primarily a novelist, 
is an excellent model in this respect. His pen-picture 
of Mr. Squeers is illuminating: 

“ Mr. Squeers’ appearance was not prepossessing. 
He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs 
in favor of two. The eye he had was unquestionably 
useful, but decidedly not ornamental: being of a 
greenish-grey, and in shape resembling the fan-light 
of a street door. The blank side of his face was 
much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a 
very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled, 
at which times his expression bordered closely on the 
villainous. His hair was very flat and shiny, save at 
the ends, where it was brushed stiffly up from a low 
protruding forehead, which assorted well with his 
harsh voice and coarse manner. He was about two or 
three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle size; he 
wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a suit 
of scholastic black; but his coat sleeves being a great 
deal too long, and his trousers a great deal too short, 
he appeared ill at ease in his clothes, and as if he were 
in a perpetual state of astonishment at finding himself 
so respectable.” 


98 


Character 


Observe again how pregnant with the suggestion of 
character is this short descriptive paragraph from 
Leonard Merrick: 

“ The advertiser — who, it transpired, called himself 
Armytage — was evidently attired for the occasion. 
He wore a frock-coat, in combination with a summer 
waistcoat, much crumpled, and the trousers of a tweed 
suit. A garnet pin ornamented the wrong portion of 
a made-up tie.” 

In a few strokes Leonard Merrick creates a living 
picture of the pseudo-genteel, shabby, rascally the¬ 
atrical agent. 

Mr. W. Clifford Poulten, the well-known critic, 
points an apt lesson from Thackeray. He says: 

“Thackeray sketches Sir Pitt Crawley’s appearance, 
and some of his characters as well, in forty-two words: 

.... a man in drab breeches and gaiters, and 
with a dirty old cravat, a foul old neckcloth 
lashed round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, 
a pair of twinkling gray eyes, and a mouth per¬ 
petually on the grin. 

The man stands before us complete. The first portion 
of the passage points out the negative qualities: the 
man doesn’t worry about new clothes, or even to clean 
his old ones; to have such an intimate thing as a neck¬ 
cloth washed, or to shave. All this might spring from 
carelessness, and produce an unpleasant effect without 
99 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


being morally repulsive; but then we get the statement 
that he leers, and that his mouth is perpetually ‘ on 
the grin.’ 

“ The use of the word grin here, instead of smile , 
is almost as important as that of the word beating 
in Burke’s* famous passage referring to the Angel 
of Death being abroad: ‘ I can almost hear the beating 
of his wings,’ which it was observed would have 
immediately become ridiculous if he had said flapping. 
Study the interaction of one word upon another. A 
grin, and twinkling eyes, are by no means repellent 
characteristics; but when the grin is perpetual, the 
face is red and leering, and the whole is completed by 
a shining bald head above a foul neckcloth below, a 
definitely unpleasing effect is produced. We feel that 
we dislike Sir Pitt as thoroughly as if he had been 
introduced by a whole string of denunciatory adjec¬ 
tives; and we believe in him much more firmly than we 
should in the latter case.” 

So real is the pen-picture of Sir Pitt Crawley that 
it is quite conceivable he had his prototype in real 
life. The majority of authors draw unreservedly on 
real life for their characters. The young writer 
should assiduously practise the invaluable art of per¬ 
sonal observation. Study all the varying types of 
humanity with whom you come in contact. Try to 
visualize their outlook on life; compare the philoso¬ 
phy of the tramp with that of the footman. Note the 

* It was John Bright, not Burke. —M. J. 

100 


Character 


differing conditions under which people live. Observe 
their clothes — an unfailing index to character — 
their habits, prejudices, and amusements. Note par¬ 
ticularly how little concrete things reveal character 

— a cheap brooch, a monocle, a man’s purse, a gold- 
topped stick, a decollete dress, rouge and perfume, a 
button-hole, a celluloid collar, a ready-made bow tie 

— all such small details are invaluable in depicting 
characters and types. 

This should be supplemented by continual practice 
in the even more important art of transferring mental 
impressions to paper. Observe continuously and 
thoroughly; neglect no material, however common¬ 
place; and aim at creating a picture in writing when 
you come to record your observations. Write pen- 
pictures of your friends (secretly!); read your work 
critically; try to work yourself into a state of healthy 
dissatisfaction. For only by patient and continuous 
effort and the ruthless scrapping of poor work can 
this important branch of the writer’s art be cultivated. 
Avoid cliches and hackneyed phrases at all costs. 
Try and express yourself distinctively, yet keep to a 
good plain style of writing. Avoid trite similes; 
don’t describe someone 66 trembling like a leaf,” or 
66 eating like a hog,” or 46 talking nineteen to the 
dozen.” That is the sure way to miss the target. 

Don’t despise the classics. Read Chaucer’s Can- 
101 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


terhury Tales , a masterpiece of characterization; the 
essays of Steele and Addison and the Spectator 
papers, which contain some of the first (and best) 
attempts to delineate character in prose, notably 
Sir Roger de Coverley. Shakespeare’s plays are a 
gold mine; Balzac, Swift, Landor (Imaginary Con¬ 
versations) ; and perhaps, above all, the Bible. 

Don’t be afraid to write in order to destroy. In 
the short story a whole descriptive essay will prob¬ 
ably have to boil down to a single paragraph. Prac¬ 
tise 64 cutting ” your work, retaining only what is 
essential and significant. All this is invaluable 
preparation. 

Of course, characters stand out in novels more than 
in short stories. In short stories the type that is re¬ 
membered is usually one that recurs in a series, e.g., 
Sherlock Holmes, Captain Kettle, Bindle, etc. Kipps, 
Mr. Polly, Mark Sabre, Uncle Toby and Dickens’ and 
Thackeray’s characters loom larger in our recollec¬ 
tion than the miniature portraits of the short story. 

The presentation of character in fiction is a very 
delicate process, comparable, perhaps, with the fine 
art of the etcher, of whom Seymour Haden has writ¬ 
ten: 44 every stroke he makes tells strongly against 
him if it be bad, or proves him to be a master if it be 
good. In no branch of art does a touch go for so 
much. The necessity for a rigid selection is therefore 
102 


Character 


constantly present to his mind. If one stroke in the 
right place tell more for him than ten in the wrong, 
it would seem to follow that that single stroke is a 
more learned stroke than the scores of ten by which 
he would have arrived at his end.” 

What the etcher does with his needle the writer 
should try and do with his pen. But although the 
art of etching suggests a clear-cut line drawing in one 
color, the writer must not be afraid of using half¬ 
tones. 

In the good old Lyceum melodrama the villain 
was always a deep-dyed scoundrel, the hero a man 
of unblemished virtue and courage, the heroine 
equally consistent throughout the piece; the charac¬ 
ters were, so to speak, stamped black and white, good 
or bad. That is not the way to establish character 
in the short story. The reader will soon tire of mere 
puppets. The villain must have a motive to inspire 
him to acts of cunning or wickedness; his attitude 
must be understandable, at any rate. He must be a 
human being. 

This may seem elementary advice; but of the 
thousands of MSS. which pass through any editor’s 
hands, a substantial percentage deal with characters 
which are so colorless and devoid of reality that 
they might just as well have been labelled 66 Villain,” 
66 Hero,” “ Heroine,” and so on. Probably the opti- 
103 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


mistic amateurs who bombard editors with these 
futile MSS. have in their own mind’s eye some sort 
of conception of what their characters look like and 
how they behave, but it is quite certain that they fail 
completely in portraying them to the reader. 

And yet the portrayal of character is so easy! At 
every turn of the story the writer is given an opening 
to reveal yet another glimpse of character. Dialogue, 
action, suggestion — every new development can be 
made to throw light on the people in the story. Every 
word they utter, every little thing they do, whether it 
be diving into a rushing river, or fidgeting nervously 
with a paper knife, can be made to serve the purpose 
of characterization. 

Personal traits and mannerisms serve as useful 
identification marks. If your hero has a habit of 
stroking his chin meditatively, every time you intro¬ 
duce this gesture it enables the reader to visualize 
him quite plainly. Similarly individual mannerisms 
of speech may be repeated to enable the reader to 
identify a character; and all these little pictorial 
touches have a direct bearing on character. 

Such gestures must be distinctive, and yet seem 
true to life. We have all met the man who bites off 
the end of his cigar, the woman who fumbles in her 
purse for something she can never find, the old gentle¬ 
man who always polishes his spectacles before put- 
104 


Character 


ting them on. It is quite a simple matter to transfer 
such real life characteristics to our fictional creations. 
On the other hand, the office boy who is always 
whistling and the self-conscious curate who precedes 
everything he says with “ Ahem ” are, so to speak, 
literary cliches , and should be avoided. 

The process of presenting character, then, is a 
gradual one. Provided that the student realizes the 
way to set to work it should not be overwhelmingly 
difficult. There are a hundred and one opportunities 
which occur in the writing of a short story to enable 
the writer to distribute the little suggestive pictorial 
touches which are the whole art of conveying physical 
resemblance and character. 

In a short story character should stand out in 
sharp relief. This applies especially to the leading 
personages of the story. This prominence is usually 
achieved by the contrast of one character with an¬ 
other, each one acting as a foil to the rest. 

But it may he argued, character is a complex thing, 
much too vague and contradictory to be expressed in 
a single stroke. That is true; but for the purposes of 
the short story it is enough to stamp the character 
with one salient characteristic, stressing this trait 
throughout, and enabling the character to stand as the 
expression of this particular quality, good or bad. 
Thus one person may represent Cruelty, another De- 
105 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


votion, another Ambition, and so on. This is a mod¬ 
ern and more subtle variation of the old Morality- 
Plays. One well-known writer, in fact, is said to give 
his characters the names of such virtues and vices in 
order to assist in this process of embodiment; only 
deleting the labels and substituting names when the 
story reaches the revision stage. 

Not in every short story is the contrast between 
character so sharp and distinct, but in the story that is 
professedly a study of character it is a very important 
aspect to consider. The more slender the plot, the 
more important does character become. In The 
Portrait of a Coward , by Leonard Merrick, the plot, 
slight in itself, is subordinated to the main purpose 
of revealing character. Leonard Merrick portrays a 
woman who, as a girl, was married against her will 
to a man with two daughters. When he died she was 
glad but dared not show it. Year by year, she and 
her stepdaughters (who grow up into odious prigs) 
go to the cemetery to lay flowers on his grave. The 
poor woman is overawed by their sanctimonious piety 
and dares not protest against the hypocrisy of her 
own grief. Her only hope is that the girls may get 
married. But they are plain and unattractive and 
refuse to go out anywhere. At last the doctor orders 
them away to the seaside and the poor woman 
breathes a hope that they may meet someone and 
106 


Character 


make an attachment; for her it means Freedom. But 
the unexpected happens. Romance enters not their 
life, but hers. A man falls in love with her, and she 
with him. Presently she promises to marry him. But 
she must go home with the girls to 66 settle things ” 
and break the news. And when it comes to the point 
she cannot. She tells them of the proposal. 

“Oh ... after you had gone from Harrogate, 
Mr. Murray asked me to marry him.” 

The silence seemed to her to last for minutes. 

“ To do what?" gasped Amy. 

“ Well,” exclaimed Mildred, “ it didn’t take long to 
put him in his place, I hope. What impudence!” 

“ He had an impudent look,” said Amy. 

And then later: 

After breakfast, when the beds were being made, 
Mrs. Findon said: “ Doreen, if anybody calls this 
morning — a gentleman — say we’re away from home 
for a few days. You understand? For a few days 
— all of us. Oh, and Doreen, if he asks where we 
are you don’t know.” 

And finally, Merrick’s bitterly ironic ending: 

For each Sunday she goes with the Misses Findon to 
gaze upon the grave; and on their return while the 
Misses Findon sit by the fireplace, speaking at long 
intervals, in subdued tones, their stepmother stares 
from the window, knowing that her pretence of mourn- 
107 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


ing a husband will continue as long as she lives. And 
when she looks back on her romance, she marvels — 
not at the recreancy of her submission, but that once 
she briefly dared to dream she would rebel. 

Every young writer with any inclination towards 
stories of character should read this story. The con¬ 
trast between the pathetic figure of the woman who 
was a coward and the two mean-spirited, selfish and 
obstinate daughters is drawn by a master hand. The 
whole picture is real, thanks in no small part to the 
brilliant delineation of character. 

The writer who wishes to excel in the portrayal of 
character must be a keen observer of human nature. 
There is an abundance of material to select from, 
perhaps too much. Very often the beginner cannot 
see the wood for the trees. There are two kinds of 
characters, real and imaginary. Both should be 
studied, but the former with caution. Although it is 
no doubt the practice of many authors to derive char¬ 
acters from real life, the complete and faithful por¬ 
trayal of a living person in fiction is rendered almost 
impracticable by the very nature and limitations of 
fiction. Nevertheless, fiction does derive its inspira¬ 
tion from life itself, and to a very large extent the 
writer is dependent on his observation of living 
people when he sets out to depict characters in a 
story. Just as an entertainer on the stage will mimic 
108 


Character 


easily recognizable types of men and women, so may 
the writer people his stories with individual types. 

The truly enormous quantity of fiction that has 
already been written will also provide the student 
with a fruitful source of inspiration. In the creation 
of types many modern writers owe a great debt 
(perhaps unconsciously) to the creations of other 
authors. W. J. Locke’s Aristide Pujol is a modern 
and Gallic Mark Tapley; Stephen McKenna’s Sonia 
owes something to Becky Sharp; Bindle might have 
stepped from the pages of Charles Dickens. 

But it is perhaps in the method of presentation 
that the young writer may most profitably study the 
work of others. 

In addition to physical description, character may 
be revealed in dialogue (see the next chapter on 
Dialogue, page 112) or action. Just as in real life 
people are judged by what they say and do, so in 
fiction the reader unconsciously bases his estimate of 
a character on his speech and actions. It is therefore 
important to bear in mind that every word uttered 
and every action performed by a major character 
reflects directly on the character itself. 

One of the privileges of the writer is to express 
the thoughts of his characters. Perhaps thought even 
more than speech provides a strong clue to character. 
Sentences which begin 66 Now he realized . . 66 He 

109 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


began to wonder whether . . 44 His thoughts trav¬ 
elled to . . 64 She hesitated whether to tell . . 

are typical sentence forms which directly assist in 
throwing light on character. 

44 Actions speak louder than words ” is a proverb 
which applies to the revelation of character. You 
may describe a man as being honorable and loyal, 
but the reader won’t believe you if he robs his friend 
and deserts his wife. It should be obvious that what 
your characters do must be in harmony with what 
they say, and with what you, as the writer, say about 
them. 

How many characters should a short story contain? 
This naturally depends upon the length and scope of 
the story and the requirements of the plot. If you 
have gone plot hunting on the right lines you should 
not have an unduly large or small number of charac¬ 
ters. Generally speaking, the number should be re¬ 
stricted as far as possible. Two or three main 
characters should be enough. A certain number of 
minor characters— 44 supers ”—are often necessary 
to the story, but they should be kept strictly in the 
background. As on the stage the limelight is thrown 
on the leading actors, to the exclusion of the minor 
characters, servants, messengers, and so on, so in the 
short story the reader’s attention should not be 
allowed to wander from the protagonists of the story. 

110 


Character 


Sometimes when writing a story a certain character 
takes the writer’s fancy and he is tempted to develop 
it at the expense of more important characters. It 
might be the heroine’s sister, a young schoolgirl, who 
has some amusing things to say. This temptation 
should be ruthlessly overcome. Characters must be 
kept in their places. This is the time to recall the 
cynical advice of the critic who said 64 If a thing par¬ 
ticularly pleases you, have it out .” 

Naming characters is quite a fascinating pastime. 
Needless to say, names have to be chosen with great 
care, for there is a good deal in a name, in spite of 
Shakespeare. Certain names have a strong sugges¬ 
tion of character about them; Martha suggests the 
dutiful housewife; Dolly, Betty or Kitty, the rather 
frivolous young lady; John, the strong, silent man; 
Tom, the honest, straightforward son of the people; 
Grace, the quiet, unassuming girl; Basil, Rupert or 
Eric, the gay, light-hearted youngster; Claude, Alger¬ 
non or Cuthbert, the dandy; Henry, the henpecked 
husband; Philip, the earnest student; Marcus, the 
substantial man of business; Jake, Jasper, Sebastian, 
the villain of the piece; these can be multiplied indefi¬ 
nitely. The psychological influence of names is, 
therefore, very important. Naming characters, how¬ 
ever, does not as a rule present many difficulties even 
to the beginner. 


Ill 


CHAPTER V 


DIALOGUE 

* 

“ What is the use of a book,” cpmplained Alice in 
Wonderland, 66 without ^on-versationJii it?” 

Conversation or dialogue of some kind is necessary 
to most stories, and this branch of short story writing 
deserves close study. A page of dialogue is attractive 
to the editorial eye. But dialogue must not be intro¬ 
duced into a story without a definite purpose. Pas¬ 
sages of writing between quotation marks do not in 
themselves constitute dialogue. Dialogue serves vari¬ 
ous purposes; it reveals character, conveys both set¬ 
ting and information, accelerates the action, and 
gives a realistic effect to the story as a whole. 

Dialogue thus serves three main purposes: 

(1) To Reveal Character 

Character is best revealed by dialogue. (See page 
109, chapter on Character.) An anonymous writer 
once said: 64 It is not necessary to say that a woman 
is a snarling, grumpy person. Bring in the old lady 
and let her snarl.” Speech is human interest, and 
human interest sells stories. Every word uttered by a 
leading character must be significant, and help to 
112 



Dialogue 


strengthen the reader’s impression of the character. 
The minor characters may talk more or less alike, but 
the speech of the leading actors in the fiction drama 
must be individual. Not a syllable should be wasted. 

Having made up your mind about your characters, 
and having determined their various qualities — am¬ 
bition — avarice — fear — devotion — perseverance 
— and so on, you must set out, as we have seen in 
the preceding chapter, to express these qualities in 
the words you put into their mouths. 

Thus you will create the personality of your 
characters in the most effective way, i.e., by dialogue. 
The reader should be able to identify a character the 
moment he or she reappears in the story. To obtain 
this effect, dialogue must — so to speak — be on dif¬ 
ferent levels. The individuality of dialogue is 
nowhere better illustrated than in the works of 
Charles Dickens. Mr. Pecksniff, for example, never 
says anything that could be confused with the speech 
of other participants in the dialogue. The speech of 
Micawber, Sam Weller, Mrs. Gamp, serves in each 
instance as a clearly distinctive label. This is the 
effect to aim at. 

Within the limited scope of the short story this, I 
admit, becomes very difficult. Where practically 
every word must carry its own meaning, it is no easy 
matter to paint in the little characteristic touches that 
113 


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mean so much. We cannot all be Kiplings or Ben¬ 
netts ; but if we appreciate the importance of dialogue 
and make a serious attempt to fulfil its proper func¬ 
tion, there is no doubt that we shall be working on 
the right lines. 

Note, for instance, how skillfully the greed of 
Ameera’s mother and the grief of John Holden are 
conveyed by dialogue in this passage from Kipling’s 
Without Benefit of Clergy: 

“Is she dead, Sahib?” 

“ She is dead.” 

“ Then I will mourn, and afterwards take an inven¬ 
tory of the furniture in this house. For that will be 
mine. The sahib does not mean to resume it? It is 
so little, so very little, Sahib, and I am an old woman. 
I would like to lie softly.” 

“ For the mercy of God be silent a while. Go out 
and mourn where I cannot hear.” 

“ Sahib, she will be buried in four hours.” 

“ I know the custom. I shall go ere she is taken 
away. That matter is in thy hands. Look to it that 
the bed on which — on which she lies-” 

“Aha! That beautiful red-lacquered bed. I have 
long desired-” 

“ That the bed is left here untouched for my dis¬ 
posal. All else in the house is thine. Hire a cart, 
take everything, go hence, and before sunrise let there 
be nothing in this house but that which I have ordered 
thee to respect.” 


114 


Dialogue 


44 I am an old woman. I would stay at least for the 
days of mourning, and the rains have just broken. 
Whither shall I go?” 

“ What is that to me? My order is that there is a 
going. The house gear is worth a thousand rupees, 
and my orderly shall bring thee a hundred rupees 
tonight.” 

“ That is very little. Think of the cart-hire.” 

“ It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and with 
speed. 0 woman, get hence, and leave me with my 
dead!” 

To take a few elementary instances, let us suppose 
that we want to present characters as being variously 
x Cowardly, Ambitious , Namby-Pamby, Callous, etc . 
Cowardly. 

46 Take care!” cried the old man. 46 They say that 
old Martin’s ghost haunts that passage.” He peered 
nervously over Jim’s shoulder. 44 If you must — 
what’s that? That white shape — look! Oh, God, 
have mercy-” 

The abrupt, dislocated dialogue imparts the de¬ 
sired emotional effect. 

Namby-Pamby. 

44 Oh, rather,” said Algy. 44 A gel always notices 
a chap’s clothes, what? Ties and socks to match, 
and all that sort of thing, doncher know. Oh, rather!” 
Callous. 

44 You will do as I tell you,” said Brewster 
115 



Short Story Writing for Profit 

calmly. 46 When you come back with the money I 

will listen to you. Until then-” He shrugged 

his shoulders eloquently. 

66 But — but the police? And my sister — what 
will she do?” 

66 That is your affair. I have nothing to add to 
what I have already said.” 

The calm, dispassionate words contrast with the 
broken, incoherent utterances of the other. 

Dialogue should, in this way, match and blend with 
the personalities you wish to express in your writing. 

This feature of short story writing is entirely mod¬ 
ern. Dialogue in the historical romances of Scott, 
the stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan 
Poe, and the older school of short story writers is 
curiously artificial. All the characters speak on the 
same level, no attempt being made to delineate char¬ 
acter by means of dialogue. 

But, you may object, where can I find a better 
model than Stevenson? 

For style, narrative, vocabulary, I agree; but not 
for dialogue. If the title and characters’ names of, 
say, The Sire de Maletroit’s Door were changed, and 
the story submitted as an original MS. to a magazine 
editor who happened not to to have read R. L. Steven¬ 
son’s famous story, I doubt very much whether it 
would be accepted. It is an excellent story, but it 
116 



Dialogue 


does not conform to modern magazine standards. 
The dialogue in itself 64 dates ” it, and puts it out of 
court. 

The recent development of the short story appears 
to be bringing character into greater prominence. 
Thus, fiction in which dialogue had a direct bearing 
on events is giving place to fiction in which dialogue 
helps in revealing character. This, then, is one of the 
main purposes of modern dialogue. 

A frequent, but less important, object of dialogue 
is: 

(2) To Convey Setting 

Describing the setting by means of dialogue needs 
little explanation. 

By revealing its effects on the character, additional 
realism is imparted to the description of scenery or 
background. Thus in a story by W. W. Jacobs: 

“ I like this place,” said she, breaking a long silence. 
“ It is so dismal — so uncanny. Do you know, I 
wouldn’t dare to sit here alone, Jem. I should imag¬ 
ine that all sorts of dreadful things were hidden 
behind the bushes and trees, waiting to spring out on 
me. Ugh!” 

In the same way basic information necessary to 
the story’s development may be conveyed to the 
reader through the mouths of the characters. 

117 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


The third object of dialogue is: 

(3) To Carry On or Accelerate the Action 

This is a typical use of dialogue, and the majority 
of short stories contain several examples. To take 
an instance almost at random: 

“ Throw a stone down, sergeant. I want to judge 
how deep it is,” he ordered. 

When it is necessary to increase the speed of the 
action, succinct dialogue will often come to the 
writer’s assistance. 

Dialogue is one of those things easy to grasp in 
theory, but difficult to apply in practice. Always 
assuming that it is not worth while trying to write 
fiction unless one can write, or wants to write, the 
best advice I can give the beginner is to study closely 
the methods of the best writers. First, as a reader in 
order to judge the effect; then, more critically and 
analytically, as a student. 

Read W. W. Jacobs, whose dialogue is a model. 
Jacobs is the literary equivalent of Phil May, who, 
when he had finished a drawing, went over it with 
scrupulous care and rubbed out every line that was 
not absolutely indispensable. W. W. Jacobs’ stories 
are like that; his economy in words is the delight of 
every writer who appreciates craftsmanship. Other 
118 


Dialogue 


authors to study for the use of dialogue are: An¬ 
thony Hope (The Dolly Dialogues ), E. F. Benson 
{Dodo, Miss Mapp, Queen Lucia, especially), 
“ Saki ” (H. H. Munro), Owen Oliver, Leonard Mer¬ 
rick, 0. Henry, Jack London and A. A. Milne. 

Conversation in fiction must appear real and true 
to life, although it is as a matter of fact anything but 
strictly true to life. The faithful reproduction of 
ordinary human speech would appear ridiculous on 
the printed page. (See Chapter I, page 14.) One 
cannot repeat too often that art is a continuous proc¬ 
ess of selection. The dialogue of fiction is the result 
of drastic boiling down of ordinary speech. Only 
what is significant may remain; all the innumerable 
irrelevances, repetitions, ejaculations, grammatical 
errors and meaningless phrases must be pruned away 
before dialogue can be written down. I find it very 
hard to make some young writers believe this, but 
fortunately something happened recently which 
should convince all “ realistic ” sceptics. 

A certain local alderman complained of the unfair 
treatment of a newspaper which “ edited ” his 
speeches. The newspaper took a neat revenge by 
reproducing his next speech exactly as he delivered 
it, omitting nothing, and faithfully transferring into 
print all the “ urns ” and “ ers ” and incoherencies 
and errors! If, then, a prepared speech can be 
119 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

made to appear absurd, what about spontaneous 
conversation? 

Many people seem to find dialogue hard to write. 
To some writers fresh sparkling dialogue comes nat¬ 
urally; others strive laboriously only to produce 
stodge. Dialogue must be spontaneous to be success¬ 
ful. Therefore, revision is not desirable. If your 
dialogue does not develop naturally, scrap it and 
begin again. 

To any writer whose dialogue is his weak point, I 
recommend the plan of inventing imaginary conver¬ 
sations between well-known characters in fiction. The 
characterization is, so to speak, ready-made; it only 
remains to put appropriate and characteristic re¬ 
marks in their mouths. 

Invent, say, discussions between Kipps and Mr. 
Micawber, Captain Kettle and Raffles, Bindle and the 
Night Watchman. Don’t merely imitate their manner 
of utterances; try and get at things from their dif¬ 
ferent points of view. 

Study your character’s outlook on life, and you 
will have discovered the royal road to expressing his 
thoughts in dialogue. As a mere literary exercise, 
too, this procedure has the advantage of making your 
style more supple. 

Another plan to improve your dialogue is to take 
any short story which lends itself to the purpose, and 
120 


Dialogue 


rewrite it entirely in dialogue, i.e ., convert it into a 
one-act play (which is the dramatic form the short 
story most closely resembles). Many of 0. Henry’s 
stories are suitable for this useful literary exercise. 
It is not necessary to transform a whole story in this 
way. Take as many passages as you can and rewrite 
them in dialogue form. This exercise will improve 
your writing, and also impart elasticity to your 
dialogue. 

The acid test of dialogue is Put yourself in his 
place. You, as the writer, clearly visualize your 
characters. Therefore, when writing down their 
speech you must become each in turn, seeing things 
from each individual point of view and talking nat¬ 
urally as you would expect them to talk. In a crisis, 
speech naturally becomes sharp, staccato, sometimes 
incoherent; over the walnuts and wine, dialogue is 
leisurely, more polished. 

Don’t try and obtain sympathy for your hero and 
heroine by giving them all the pleasant things to say, 
and only putting imprecations and surly abuse in the 
mouth of your villain. Let him be like 64 Mr. Wu,” 
have a good case and argue it eloquently. 

Dialogue is an excellent means of condensation. 
Instead of writing 44 Unless you leave the town 
tonight,” he said, with a threatening air, simply say 
44 Unless you leave the town tonight,” he threatened . 

121 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


This brings us to the problem of the eternal “ he 
said ” and “ she said.” Avoidance of the perfect 
tense of the verb “ to say ” has become almost a 
fetish. Some writers never use this poor abused verb 
at all, which I think is a mistake. But there is no 
doubt that the constant repetition of “ he said ” and 
46 she said ” is deadly monotonous. Substitutes are 
innumerable: such verbs as: 


asked 

groaned 

continued 

demanded 

hesitated 

went on 

blurted 

murmured 

expostulated 

sneered 

put in 

frowned 

stammered 

replied 

suggested 

answered 

retorted 

wondered 

acquiesced 

inquired 

urged 

declared 

ejaculated 

nodded 

gasped 

returned 

agreed 

cried 

uttered 

explained 

demurred 

whispered 

hinted 

faltered 

breathed 

laughed 


will readily occur to the writer. Considerable advan¬ 
tage may be taken also of the additional shades of 
meaning thus supplied. 

The vexed question of dialect deserves some con¬ 
sideration. The golden rule is a negative one; don’t 
attempt the use of any form of dialect with which you 
122 


Dialogue 


are not thoroughly familiar. And even then, be care¬ 
ful not to overdo it. As one critic has said, the short 
story that requires a glossary will go down to pos¬ 
terity in manuscript form. Life is too short nowa¬ 
days to unravel the intricajcies of an unfamiliar 
dialect. Some forms, however, are acceptable, but it 
will be noted that they are usually recognized dia¬ 
lects, e.g., Yorkshire, Cockney, West Country, Irish, 
Scotch, and even then are carefully diluted to make 
them thoroughly intelligible to the average reader. 
It is, incidentally, a waste of effort to try and commit 
dialect to paper with unswerving fidelity. The thing 
cannot be done. The best plan is to reproduce as 
dialect only a few outstanding characteristics of 
phrase and turns of speech, and write the rest in 
ordinary English. This will be quite sufficient to 
give the desired effect. 

The reproduction of a foreign idiom can be 
handled in two ways, either by scattering italicized 
phrases in the language itself, to give it a flavor as it 
were; this, however, should be done with great care; 
such phrases as 44 n’est-ce pas?” 44 eh bien,” 44 alors ” 
44 tiens,” etc., seem to have a strange fascination for 
anyone ignorant of French. They should never be 
used by anyone uncertain of their exact meaning. 
Nothing destroys the illusion so quickly as the wrong 
use or mis-spelling of another language with which 
123 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


the reader may be intimately acquainted. The other 
and better way, in my opinion, to express foreign 
construction and idiom is in English words. Leonard 
Merrick, whose short stories of the cafes and boule¬ 
vards of Paris should be read by every young writer, 
excels in this method of presentation. Here is an 
illustration from a story by W. B. Maxwell (A Ger¬ 
man in the Village) ,* 

“ Battalion headquarters is here, at Emile Veuillot’s 
— that is me, my lieutenant. Your colonel’s mess is 
opposite — at Monsieur Achille Nodier’s. You will 
be well there. It is the best house. Your quarter¬ 
master’s stores? Go forward. You are at Madame 
Binet’s. Your transport will enter those fields behind 
the school. Stop not those wagons. Let them go for¬ 
ward down the hill to the first corner. Hold, my cap¬ 
tain, one platoon this way, into the barn.” 

When to use dialogue, is the problem that usually 
confronts the beginner. 

Generalizations are useless; it all depends on the 
circumstances of the story in making. It is, I am 
sure, largely a matter of instinct with most good 
writers. Provided that the general principles are 
understood and that the various purposes of dialogue 
are borne in mind, it should not be difficult to decide 

* From The Great Interruption. 

124 


Dialogue 


the point. The writer should always bear in mind 
the three main objects of dialogue: 

(1) To reveal character; (2) to convey setting or 
information, and (3) to accelerate or carry on the 
action. Very often dialogue may be utilized for 
more than one purpose at the same time, so urgent is 
the necessity for compression in the short story. 


125 


CHAPTER VI 


STYLE 

Manners may make the man, but style does not 
make an author. It is of not much use being able to 
say a thing well if one hasn’t anything good to say. 
There is no individuality of style without individu¬ 
ality of thought. As far as the writer of fiction is 
concerned, style is not nearly so important as people 
imagine. There are at least a dozen very well known 
contributors to the magazines who habitually violate 
the rules of grammar, syntax and many other laws of 
literary composition. This probably does not arise 
from ignorance, but from sheer carelessness. It is 
indefensible, but it is quite true. I mention this, not 
in order that their example shall be followed (it is 
scarcely necessary to point out that their work is 
accepted in spite of such errors), but to show that 
the literary stylist has no advantage when writing 
magazine fiction. In fact I think that a polished style 
is rather a drawback. It needs living up to. The 
exquisite prose of Max Beerbohm needs (and fortu¬ 
nately has) a delicate imagination and a fine percep¬ 
tion to match. For the rough and tumble fiction of 
126 


Style 


the monthly magazines, all that is needed is a vig¬ 
orous straightforward 66 story-telling ” style. 

Style is the expression of the writer’s personality 
in words. Certain authors have the gift of impress¬ 
ing their personality on all they write. Leonard 
Merrick and Stacy Aumonier have this indefinable 
gift to a conspicuous degree. That it is a gift can¬ 
not be denied. Yet the young writer may profitably 
study their style and that of many other authors, 
noting particularly the uncommon use of ordinary 
words, sentence forms, the use of inversions, the 
introduction of dialogue, the general spirit of their 
stories. Many a beginner has thus learned at least 
one useful trick of the trade, to write 66 in the grand 
manner.” 

Style is, or should be, an unconscious growth. 
Consciously trying to acquire literary style is fatal. 
Only by the indirect method of soaking oneself in 
literature can a pleasing style be developed. 

J. Berg. Esenwein, editor of Lippincott’s Monthly 
Magazine, says: 

“ ‘ Reading maketh a full man,’ said much-quoted 
Bacon; but it depends upon the reader as to what he 
will be full of — other men’s ideas, or a dynamic store 
of fact and fancy. Writers do not read too much; 
they digest too little. A prodigious diet of reading, 
assimilated into brain and heart, cannot but be of vast 
127 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


assistance in all future creation. But to be the slavish 
imitator of those whom you read, is the sign-manual 
of inferiority.” 

Vocabulary should be increased day by day. 
Reading — and yet more reading — will accomplish 
this. A careful study of even only a few good stories 
will yield rich results. In this connection it is advis¬ 
able to study the work of only first-class writers. 

English is a 46 woolly ” language, and the hundreds 
of clusters of words which group round one meaning 
necessitate a nice discrimination in their use. The 
need for a good dictionary is obvious. A book which 
I cordially recommend to all aspiring writers is 
Roget’s Thesaurus. It is an excellent guide to the 
64 right word ” and is much more elastic than the 
ordinary dictionary of synonyms. 

Essay writing is valuable for teaching the logical 
sequence of sentences, and the rhythm of prose. An¬ 
other good plan to improve the sense of prose rhythm 
is to read good modern poetry, e.g., Alfred Noyes, 
Sir William Watson and Rupert Brooke. Perhaps it 
is this important quality of rhythm that makes cer¬ 
tain authors’ work so readable. Harsh and unmusi¬ 
cal prose — unless used as a deliberate device — 
jars on the reader, and sometimes breaks the thread 
of interest altogether. Sentences must be nicely 
balanced and proportioned in fiction as well as 
128 


Style 


essays. The only remedy for the student who finds 
constant difficulty in expressing himself smoothly 
and fluently, is to take a self-instruction course in 
English composition. He should write as much as 
possible; write letters, keep a diary, aiming always 
at acquiring facility of expression. Style will take 
care of itself. 

For the foundation of a good literary style there is 
no better model in the world than the Bible. Let any¬ 
one who doubts the merit of simplicity in writing, 
re-read the stories of the Old Testament and the Par¬ 
ables of the New. They are a revelation in style. 

Without any straining after effect, the simple lan¬ 
guage is not only uniformly beautiful, but holds the 
reader’s attention throughout. Arlo Bates, in Talks 
on Writing English , says of a passage in Marie 
Corelli’s novel Bar abbas: 

“ Water having been brought, Pilate, according to 
Miss Corelli, thus proceeded: 

4 Slowly lowering his hands he dipped them in the 
shining bowl, rinsing them over and over again in the 
clear, cold element, which sparkled in its polished 
receptacle like an opal against the fire.’ 

“ The Bible finds it possible to say all of this that 
is necessary in the words: 

4 Pilate took water, and washed his hands.’ ” 

The Bible is an object lesson in the use of English 
129 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


and the value of compression, and in the short story 
we have seen that compression is not only desirable, 
but necessary. 

Never use two words where one will do. Don’t 
use a long word where a short one will suffice. 
Circumlocution is a deadly sin; don’t write “ in an 
intoxicated condition ” when you mean 64 drunk.” 
Strip your writing of all superfluous words. Study, 
in addition to the Bible, the stories of Guy de Mau¬ 
passant, 0. Henry and R. L. Stevenson, the three 
great masters in literary economy. Don’t model 
your style on Henry James, whose work is admired 
not because his style is involved, but in spite of it. 

A. S. M. Hutchinson, describing the evening 
exodus of girls from city offices, lets himself go as 
follows: 

“ They all are wonderful. There is, as out they 
come, and shining home they go, no man they pass — 
not all your servants or your laurelled — can of his 
powers give to weariness what of their graces these 
can give; can of his brain or of his hands bequeath 
mankind what of their these, its mothers foreordained, 
maintaining it bequeath it. All lovely, all wonderful; 
and loveliest and wondrous most that one, as often I 
have seen, who to a lover waiting there emerges, and 
goes to him and amidst all the thronging crowds, raises 
her face to him and kisses him, and takes his arm and 
turns along the crowded streets with him; and lo, no 
130 


Style 

longer crowded, fretful, anxious are that lover’s ways, 
but Paradise.”* 

This is the kind of thing to avoid. Only an estab¬ 
lished 44 best-seller ” may indulge in such verbal fan¬ 
tasy and flourish. In justice to the author of If Win¬ 
ter Comes it must be said that the whimsical theme 
of the story does justify light and fantastic treat¬ 
ment, but surely not to the extent of the barbarous 
paragraph above. 

Style in fiction should not be as characteristic as, 
say, handwriting. It must be kept in its proper place, 
subordinate to the main purpose of 46 telling a story.” 
The matter of the story deserves more attention than 
the manner of telling it. 

Every writer passes through a period of style¬ 
forming influence. Many celebrated authors have 
openly acknowledged their debt in this respect to the 
classics. The wisdom of studying the work of classic 
writers as a preparation for modern journalism is 
analogous to the now established theory that a study 
of Latin is the best foundation for a knowledge of 
English, French and Italian. As a foundation only 
— not as a model to be imitated. Language is 
always susceptible to the passing of time and changes 
of habits. 

The young writer who slavishly models his style on 

* From The Eighth Wonder. 


131 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


even such accomplished stylists as Carlyle, Borrow 
or Bacon is going to make no headway with magazine 
editors. This may seem a reflection on magazine 
editors, but it is their job to supply the public with 
what they want, and, from a practical point of view, 
the young writer should recognize this law of supply 
and demand. 

Study must be intelligent, fundamental principles 
understood and appreciated, and the student may 
browse through the vast literary fields with incalcu¬ 
lable benefit to his own productions. Above all else, 
his taste should be catholic, and his reading creative . 

The writer’s style should harmonize with the gen¬ 
eral tone of the story. A whimsical theme demands 
a delicate touch, a dramatic story is best told in a 
vigorous style. Slang and colloquialisms are some¬ 
times in keeping with the spirit of the story, and 
should not be despised. Cliches, platitudes and 
66 journalese ” should be avoided. Never degenerate 
into jargon; remember the babu’s report of his 
mother’s death, “ Regret to inform you the hand that 
rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket.” But a good 
plain style does not mean a commonplace style. Cul¬ 
tivate an original turn of phrase; coin similes for 
your own use. Jot down in a notebook any interest¬ 
ing scrap of information that may be turned to liter¬ 
ary account. For instance, a writer recently stated 
132 


Style 


that in Turkey old maids are practically unknown. 
A new simile at once suggests itself for use when 
required — 66 As rare as old maids in Turkey.” 

At the same time, don’t allow your work to become 
overrun with flowers of speech in an effort to avoid 
the commonplace. In fact, the efforts of many inex¬ 
perienced writers would be improved by a drastic 
weeding-out of flowery phrases. 

Writing merely for effect is fatal. Striking turns 
of phrase, epigrams, witticisms and ingenious meta¬ 
phors and similes are appreciated at proper intervals 
and in reasonable quantity. Man cannot live by cake 
alone. Don’t drag in jokes, or worse — puns. A 
recent magazine story contains this passage: 

“ Under the wall of the chief hotel a group of 
licensed mendicants thrust maimed limbs into the 
faces of the passers-by, mouthing their demands of 
4 One pen for bread.’ 

“ 4 Listen to ’em,’ muttered Gardiner. 4 What d’ye 
think of a country that allows that sort of thing?’ 

44 4 That, friend Gardiner,’ returned Rumens, 4 is the 
Madeira whine we’ve heard so much about.’ ” 

A good joke, but a bad practice for a story writer. 
Generally speaking, fiction unadorned with extra¬ 
neous humor is adorned the most. 

Beware, too, of overdoing the use of dots, dashes, 
commas, asterisks, exclamation marks and other 
133 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


punctuation devices. Nothing is more irritating to a 
sensitive reader than a plague of dots. To him they 
represent gaps not in the story, but in the writer’s 
mentality. 

Good style does not mean the language of the 
purist. Split infinitives, the ending of sentences with 
prepositions, and many other literary peccadilloes 
which cause the academic-minded to shudder, are 
honored in the breach in fiction. It must not be 
thought, however, that a good style is to be dep¬ 
recated. A stylish batsman may make a smaller 
score in an inning than the unpolished hitter, but in 
the long run the positions will be reversed, because 
the principles of style are sound. The important 
thing to remember is that style should not be delib¬ 
erately cultivated. Creative reading is the great 
secret. The successful author, reviewing his career, 
usually has to admit that his style, like Topsy, has 
“ grow’d.” 


134 


CHAPTER VII 


LOCAL COLOR 

AND SOME TYPES OF SHORT STORY 

The greatest mistake an inexperienced writer can 
make is to choose for a story a setting about which he 
knows nothing. A clerk living in a suburb is tempt¬ 
ing Providence by producing a story of Alaskan 
snows or the Egyptian desert. The editor who reads 
the MS. may never have been there either, but editors 
have an uncanny knack of penetrating the accuracy 
of local color. Omniscience in these matters seems 
to be a peculiar editorial gift. It is, therefore, sound 
policy to confine first efforts at short story writing to 
settings with which one is familiar. There is plenty 
of interesting material in everyone’s life, however 
commonplace it may appear at first sight. 

Jack London once said that any man with a tattoo- 
mark on the back of his hand or on his forearm was 
worth following for a romance. 0. Henry asserted 
that it would be impossible to knock at any house 
door and say to the first person who appeared: 66 Fly! 
All has been discovered!” and not get a story. 

Romance, pathos, humor, adventure, and tragedy 
are everywhere. 0. Henry found them in the “ Four 
135 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


Million ” of New York; Arthur Morrison in the East 
End of London. 

Stories of ordinary, everyday people, suburbs, 
office life, industry, soldiering, country life, shops, 
restaurants, railways, schools—all have their market. 

At the same time I must admit that many writers 
have built up a reputation (consolidated by useful 
checks) by writing of places and people which are 
purely the products of imagination, aided probably 
by a little careful study of books of travel or another 
writer’s stories dealing with the same surroundings. 
One at least of our popular u Eastern ” novelists has 
only visited Egypt once in her life, and that after her 
proceeds from successful Egyptian novels enabled 
her to do so. The comment is not intended to be 
disparaging; in fact, I think all the more credit is 
due to the writer in question. Imagination is a won¬ 
derful gift, and it varies in an amazing degree. By 
dint of imagination some writers can produce stories 
of remote climes which are convincing in their real¬ 
ism. But this gift of just striking the right note 
belongs to a small minority, and, generally speaking, 
young writers should avoid what is a dangerous 
practice. 

At the same time realism does not necessarily 
imply literal accuracy.* The Rhodesian novels of 

* See page 17. 


136 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 

the late Gertrude Page are extraordinarily realistic, 
but with all respect to the memory of this gifted 
author, no one who has lived in modem Rhodesia 
would accept her books as faithful presentations of 
Rhodesian life and conditions. 

It is quite sufficient to make a special study of a 
place or of certain types of people. It is not 
necessary to have actually lived in the locality or to 
have been on intimate terms with the people you are 
going to use as material for a story. 

In this respect enterprise gets its own reward. In 
fiction as in most walks of life, specialization pays. 

A young writer came to me not long ago with an 
idea for a story. The plot hinged on a famous oil 
painting. He explained that it was necessary to the 
story to describe the inspection of the picture by a 
group of art critics. Unfortunately, he hadn’t the 
slightest idea how to put this down on paper. Like 
the famous old lady, he didn’t know much about art. 
Where the technical side was concerned he admitted 
— very sensibly — that he was out of his depth. The 
advice I gave him was to turn up certain newspaper 
files of the last Royal Academy and to consult the 
critics’ articles which always appear at considerable 
length at that time of the year. He took the advice 
and easily gleaned enough material to make his 
critics’ remarks seem true to life. 

137 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


It cannot be over-emphasized that this “ seeming 
true to life ” is the goal to be aimed at. Not real life 
as it is but as it is popularly supposed to be. W. W. 
Jacobs’s sailormen are not real sailors, but better 
still, they are what the public imagine them to be. 
There is all the difference in the world between what 
is convincing in fiction and what is true. 

One popular novelist is at present specializing in 
hunting stories. So cleverly is the local color painted 
in that few people suspect that the writer’s personal 
experience of hunting is very limited and that all the 
picturesque phraseology and technical detail of the 
hunt were supplied by another writer! What does it 
matter? The stories entertain and the hunting 
atmosphere seems true to life. 

The problem of what to write about is, of course, 
nearly always solved by the plot. Once the plot has 
crystallized into being the setting of the story is de¬ 
cided as a matter of course. But not always. For 
instance, a War Story plot — still unpopular with 
editors five years after the Great War! — must be 
adapted to another setting: 

A child about eleven years old adores her father. 
The Great War takes him away and she dimly realizes 
what war means. Without him she is desperately 
lonely. The doll which he gave her is her sole 
companion. Presently he is invalided home with gas 
138 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 

poisoning and she sees him die in agony. An intense 
hatred for the Germans who killed him takes posses¬ 
sion of her. Grief-stricken, she turns to her beloved 
doll for consolation. One day, combing her doll’s 
hair, she finds the words “ Made in Germany.” It 
dawns on her that the doll may have been — was — 
made by the German who killed her Daddy. That 
night she is found lying by the side of the shattered 
doll. 

This plot would probably be marketable if 
remoulded on different lines. A Serbian dollmaker, 
the little daughter of a Bulgarian peasant, his death 
at the hands of a Serbian raiding party and her sacri¬ 
fice of the cherished doll — something on these lines 
would undoubtedly make the plot more acceptable 
under current conditions. 

Stories in which character predominates need 
careful handling of “ local color.” In such stories 
the reader travels at a more leisurely pace, is more 
critical of detail. But do not imagine that having 
described the background of a story you can go ahead 
with your mind at rest as far as local color is con¬ 
cerned. Fictional pictures are not created by a 
clumsy daub, and then — finish. The scene must be 
built up carefully and subtly. You may, of course, 
begin with a paragraph of scenic description; but 
be careful not to overdo it. And this does not absolve 
you from the subsequent building-up process. 

139 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


Two great principles, apparently in direct opposi¬ 
tion to each other, govern the construction of a short 
story; on the one hand a rigid condensation to the 
skeleton of the action, and on the other the insertion 
of numerous scraps of matter to create atmosphere, 
character, and generally to achieve conviction. The 
clever balancing of these two opposed principles is 
craftsmanship. To the reader action and atmosphere 
must appear inseparable, each dependent on the other 
for its effect. 

Here are a few instances to show how local color 
is deftly woven into the body of the story: 

“Bud gazed impartially at the water-jar hanging 
on the gallery and chewed a mesquite leaf. For miles 
they had ridden in silence save for the soft drum of 
the ponies’ hoofs on the matted mesquite grass. . . .” 
— 0. Henry. 

“ Why, he said to himself as he walked out into the 
nightly crowd of Chinese, Indians, Burmans, buffalo 
carts, rickshaws, gharries, motor-cars, all seething 
through the wide white lighted streets of Rangoon — 
why should he not manage to get the treasure after 
all?” — Beatrice Grimshaw. 

“ He was sitting at a paper-strewn table in his 
library, a decorous library, a gentleman’s library, 
lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases filled with 
books that no gentleman’s library should be without, 
and trying to solve the eternal problem why two and 
two should not make forty, when the butler entered 
announcing the doctor.”— W. J. Locke. 

140 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 

“ Beddington, wading knee-deep in the scrub . . . 
And now as he lay on the flower-starred turf, his back 
against the sun-warmed rock, he grew increasingly con¬ 
fident that this humble expedition was destined to serve 
its purpose with equal success.”— Lucas, Malet. 

Observe with what seemingly careless skill the 
local color is touched in. These random examples 
may be indefinitely multiplied by the student’s own 
reading. The lesson is plain; local color is most 
effectively pictured by being skillfully sandwiched in 
the body of the story. After all, local color is only a 
minor theme and should be treated accordingly. 

The five senses — sight, touch, hearing, taste, 
smelling — are the means by which the writer obtains 
atmosphere. Of these, sight and hearing are the most 
widely used, but the others should not be overlooked. 
Smell, for instance, is very suggestive. The fra¬ 
grance of the wood, the salt sea breeze, the acrid smell 
of gunpowder, the appetizing smell of cooking bacon, 
the aroma of burning tobacco — all these may be 
pressed into service with excellent results. Atmos¬ 
phere may by this means be conveyed in that subtle 
indirect way which is the essence of craftsmanship. 
It is unnecessary, for instance, to interrupt the action 
of the story to state directly that 66 The sea breeze 
blew in his face.” Why not, 64 Jimmy, sniffing the sea 
breeze, made his way . . .” etc.? 

Note how the effects are obtained in the following 
141 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

colorful passage from a short story by John Russell.* 

“ Henry of Vitongo was a born pagan. ... He 
loved the equal days and the long, long moonlit nights 
that pass to merriment and choric song, the droning 
organ of the reef and the cymballing of the palm- 
fronds. He loved every impact that set him in his 
ordained environment — the salted lash of spray, driv¬ 
ing wind, and rain like hammers from the sky; the 
breath-taking, bubble-poised send of a frail canoe; the 
cleaving triumph of a deep-sea dive; saffron dawns 
and cool purple dusks and quivering fierce noons on 
a coral shore.” 

The main object of local color, setting and atmos¬ 
phere is to create a realistic picture for the benefit 
of the reader. It is occasionally necessary to exag¬ 
gerate a little in order to achieve a realistic effect, 
but this legitimate device must not be confused with 
inaccuracy of detail. Absurd mistakes about the 
habits of animals and birds, wrong seasonal appear¬ 
ances of plants and flowers, are points which provide 
a lusty weapon for the critic. Legal technicalities, 
historical detail, facts and figures generally, must be 
handled with great care. Don’t, as Dickens did, 
make a character (Lady Deadlock) walk from 
Berkeley Square to St. Albans in about two hours. 

The golden rule is “ verify your references.” 
Until you are sure of your ground, don’t put anything 

* The Pagan (In Dark Places). 

142 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 

of this nature into your story. Carefully check the 
passing of time. The old-time stage clock which re¬ 
corded the passing of half an hour while the actors 
spoke but a few sentences was ridiculous. 

Don’t send your characters a 100-mile journey by 
motor car and bring them to their destination in half 
an hour. Such mistakes are easily made, and to 
obviate them many writers make a practice of pre¬ 
paring for their own information maps of the 
locality, plans of the house, and so on. Anyone who 
cannot visualize a scene clearly should adopt this 
method. 

* * * * * * 

Intelligent study of the magazines month by 
month will reveal what kind of stories are in favor 
with editors. At the present time, for instance, there 
is a boom in psychic stories, not quite on the lines of 
the old ghost story, but with a modern dash of the 
supernatural. Certain types of story are always in 
demand: detective and mystery stories; adventure 
stories; sporting stories; and, of course, love stories. 

I have noticed among the earliest efforts of many 
writers a marked tendency towards the morbid or 
gruesome. Why this should be so I do not know, but 
it is bad policy. The normal editor prefers 
66 happy ” stuff. The gruesome short story, however, 
143 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

is a fairly common product. Its stage cousin, the 
Grand Guignol, made a valiant effort to establish 
itself in the affections of playgoers, but I fear that it 
will never appeal to more than a minority. Most 
people like their theaters and fiction to be bright and 
happy, in contrast to the deadly monotony of their 
daily lives. 

Ambrose Bierce is probably responsible for the 
literary school that favors the gruesome short story, 
but the modern product differs considerably from 
the Ambrose Bierce stories, which are now 64 dated.” 

Of the modern occult and uncanny stories perhaps 
the best authors to study are Algernon Blackwood, 
May Sinclair, E. F. Benson, who has lately been 
specializing in 66 spook ” stories, and, of course, 
H. G. Wells. Stories with a touch of the supernatural 
have had a continuous vogue since Poe published his 
Ligeia. One of the best of this kind is W. B. Max¬ 
well’s The Short Cut (included in The Great Inter¬ 
ruption), The Ancient Sin , by Michael Arlen ( These 
Charming People ), is a typically modern product on 
these lines. 

Atmosphere is all-important in this type of story 
and it requires an exceedingly delicate touch to 
impart it with success. On this account it is a type 
of story which the inexperienced writer is not ad¬ 
vised to tackle. 


144 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 


Love stories are always popular. The feminine 
element preponderates in the magazine public and 
editors are always on the look-out for good romantic 
stories. This type of story is the pastry of fiction and 
needs a light and clever touch. Writers whose strong 
point is dialogue will find this a profitable form. 
Characterization is important, too, for the reader sub¬ 
consciously insists upon well-delineated portraits in 
a story in which human interest runs so high. The 
physical appearance of the characters must be firmly 
established, perhaps because the intellectual standard 
of the public that likes love stories is not very high. 
The stories of Berta Ruck (whose work is on a much 
higher literary level than many people suppose), 
Owen Oliver, Mabel Barnes-Grundy, Ethel M. Dell, 
Christine Jope-Slade, Muriel Hine, Dorothy Black, 
W. L. George, A. M. Burrage, May Christie, Kathlyn 
Rhodes, Winifred Graham and Mrs. C. N. Wil¬ 
liamson, provide an excellent index to modem 
requirements. 

Character studies are in a class apart. By this I 
mean stories which are not really stories in the strict 
sense of the word but exclusively pen-pictures. They 
occasionally find their way into the better magazines, 
but usually with some slight stirring of action to keep 
the reader’s interest alive. In Stacy Aumonier’s The 
Funny Man’s Day , which is a pathetic study of a 
145 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


professional comedian, there is this subdued action 
movement. A story may be primarily a study of 
character, yet contain a definite plot interest. Com¬ 
pare Leonard Merrick’s The Portrait of a Coward 
(see page 106) and Ole Fags by Stacy Aumonier.* 
But a vignette of character, although fiction, is not 
properly a story, but a sketch. Odd Fish by Stacy 
Aumonier (illustrated by George Belcher) is a collec¬ 
tion of such pen-portraits. 

Of all modern authors Stacy Aumonier is the ideal 
model for the portrayal of character. With a deli¬ 
cate, whimsical, shrewdly humorous touch he depicts 
an astonishing variety of types. Other authors whose 
short stories are worth reading for their light on 
human character are John Galsworthy, Arnold Ben¬ 
nett, G. K. Chesterton (in the few short stories he has 
written), Hugh Walpole, E. M. Delafield, Frank 
Swinnerton, Max Beerbohm, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, 
and Frank Norris. 

Detective and mystery stories demand a high 
degree of constructional skill. The plot is the main 
feature. The whole art of writing mystery stories 
centers in the ingenious contrivance of the denoue¬ 
ment. The more wildly improbable and perplexing 
the story, the more skill is required in revealing the 
explanation and making it convincing. The story 

* Miss Bracegirdle and Others. 

146 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 

must 66 march,” and carry the reader’s interest with¬ 
out faltering from start to finish. Read the ingenious 
stories of Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, R. Austin Freeman, 
the Bulldog Drummond stories of 44 Sapper ” and, of 
course, the classic Sherlock Holmes series by Sir A. 
Conan Doyle. 

Humorous stories are rare. Anyone who can pro¬ 
duce a really funny story — the kind of story that 
will make the reader laugh aloud — will find editors 
beaming with friendship. A sense of humor is such 
an elusive and variable quantity that it is very diffi¬ 
cult to know how to cater for it, but if you succeed 
in alighting on a means of producing laughter- 
provoking fiction, your chief worry will be income 
tax. There are two kinds of humorous stories: those 
which depend for their effect on an ingenious play on 
words or phrases, riotous burlesque, parody or satire; 
and those of which the theme and plot are rich in 
mirth-provoking situations and incidents. Of the two 
the latter is the rarer bird. Stephen Leacock excels 
in boisterous satire; William Caine has rapidly come 
to the front as a genial satirist. Of all English 
humorists pride of place must be given to W. W. 
Jacobs, whose night watchman and Bob Pretty stories 
have a strong hold on the affections of the reading 
public. His muse has been sadly silent of late. P. G. 
Wodehouse has attained wide popularity by the crea- 
147 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

tion of several humorous types, notably Jeeves, the 
discreet and resourceful butler; Keble Howard, 
Bruno Lessing, A. Neil Lyons, Pett Ridge, Saki 
(H. H. Munro), Barry Pain, A. A. Milne, Edgar 
Jepson, Denis Mackail with his exploits of 46 Gibson,” 
and the late Herbert Jenkins with his 44 Bindle ” 
stories are all well known to the magazine public. 
The creation of a humorous type seems to he the 
royal road to popular favor. But the demand for 
good humorous stuff far exceeds the supply. 

Sea stories have a wide market. An intimate 
knowledge of seafaring folk and ways is, of course, 
a first essential. This is a useful asset, for the vogue 
of sea stories appears to be permanent. To the stay- 
at-home citizen a story with a tang of the salt sea is a 
tonic. Writers who have built up a reputation for 
this type of story include: Jack London, Frank Bul- 
len, 44 Bartimeus,” Captain Frank H. Shaw, Boyd 
Cable, Bill Adams, and 44 Taffrail.” Here, again, 
local color is important. Tales of India, the tropics 
and the South Seas have a big following. Kipling, 
Robert Louis Stevenson, John Russell, Beatrice 
Grimshaw, Somerset Maugham, Edmund Snell and 
H. de Vere Stacpoole have specialized in this branch 
with marked success. Nature stories are a regular 
feature of many magazines, and now that F. St. Mars 
is dead, there seems to be no one but H. Mortimer 
148 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 

Batten and Charles G. D. Roberts to carry on the 
good work. 

The Irish yarns of George A. Birmingham and 
Dorothea Conyers, the Jewish-American stories by 
Bruno Lessing, tales of Chinatown by Thomas 
Burke, Elinor Mordaunt, and Frank Norris, stories of 
Africa by Gertrude Page and F. A. M. Webster, the 
fantastic Chinese creations of Sax Rohmer, and the 
historical romances of Rafael Sabatini and Marjorie 
Bowen — to all of these the young writer will turn 
in his search for good examples of local color. The 
next best thing to personal experience is the study of 
local color and atmosphere in the pages of other 
authors. 

The 66 bread and butter 99 story deserves mention. 
A prodigious quantity of cheap fiction is published 
every week, destined for consumption by schoolboys, 
errand boys, servant girls, factory girls — in short, 
the multitude. Most of it serves but one purpose, 
entertainment. Most of the good people who regard 
this output with contempt seem to have an idea that it 
is pernicious trash. It is nothing of the kind. It may 
not attain a high standard — it doesn’t — but it is 
what the public want, and on the whole it is whole¬ 
some if not elevating. This vast market is often over¬ 
looked by the aspiring writer. Anyone with sufficient 
imagination and energy ought to be able to turn out 
149 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


this “bread and butter” fiction. Its requirements 
are quite simple, and the pattern is readily obtainable 
at the small news agents’ shops round the corner. 
This type of fiction has well defined limitations as 
regard theme and plot, but provided you stick to the 
same kind of plot and characters you will be on the 
right lines. Don’t be afraid to imitate; the public is 
a conservative one and likes to know what to expect. 
The stories run to 15,000 words in length and the 
average rate of payment is only a guinea a thousand, 
but as no literary polish is required, merely a story 
with plenty of thrill and incident in it, it does not 
involve a heavy mental outlay on the part of the 
author. “ Juvenile ” stories are always in great 
demand. Love stories are even more popular. 

Once a foothold is secured in this market, editors 
will often commission stories on synopsis; a summary 
of the plot, and perhaps the first two or three chap¬ 
ters. To anyone with a fertile imagination and a 
ready pen this market presents lucrative possibilities. 
Many writers earn substantial incomes from what is 
generally regarded as “ bread and butter ” fiction. 

To return to the magazines, the young writer who 
relies on the plot-interest of his stories is, perhaps, 
pursuing the wisest course. The magazines of today 
are filled with stories which are practically nothing 
but action from start to finish. Stories with plenty 
150 


Local Color and Some Types of Short Story 

of excitement and incident undoubtedly appeal to 
editors. Certain familiar types of story are nothing 
but action-stories. The problem of local color is 
reduced to a minimum, but should never be entirely 
neglected. All short stories require a certain amount 
of coloring to be convincing. And if there is one 
reason more than another why MSS. are rejected, it 
is because they are unconvincing. 

The title of your story is a nice problem. It is 
almost a platitude to say that a good story deserves a 
good title. If the original inspiration of the story 
happens to have suggested the title at the same time, 
well and good. But frequently the writer has to 
puzzle his brains for an appropriate title after the 
story is finished. The best advice I can give the 
young writer is this — Don’t be satisfied with a 
fairly good title. Mediocrity is fatal. Nearly 
always there is just one title that will fit perfectly. 
Search diligently for that happy inspiration. Exam¬ 
ine the story from every possible angle. When at 
last the title frames itself in your mind you will say 
at once, 66 That’s it!” The happy title is always worth 
hunting for. 

The majority of short story titles express human 
interest. A glance at a random collection of stories 
will confirm this. Good titles always make a positive 
contribution to the story even if they only act as a 
151 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


kind of literary cement. And the main purpose of 
the title should not be overlooked: it is to label the 
story for the reader’s benefit. It should be a hall 
mark of the story’s quality. A humorous story 
should have an appropriate witty title, a story in 
the grand manner must have a serious, dignified title, 
and so on. 

The title frequently affords an opportunity for 
humor, a play upon words, alliteration, and other 
entertaining devices. Titles like The Widow’s Cruise, 
An Arabian Knight, The Pimiento Pancakes, How to 
be Happy though Married, Ladies in Lavender are 
cases in point. As a rule titles should be short, and 
concrete rather than abstract. 

The acid test of a title’s merit is its applicability 
to the general scheme or tone of the story. The 
student should pass judgment on the titles of all the 
short stories he reads, and in so doing will be grad¬ 
ually formulating for his own benefit the require¬ 
ments of a good title. Occasionally he will meet with 
a title that is a flash of genius, like H. de Vere Stac- 
poole’s title Did Kressler Kill his Wife?* which can¬ 
not be appreciated until the reader reaches the very 
last line of the story. 


* In Men, Women and Beasts. 

152 


CHAPTER VIII 


A SHORT STORY ANALYZED 

The analysis of good short stories on the lines of 
the specimen which follows is an invaluable exercise 
to enable the student to appreciate the importance of 
the architecture of a short story. Every story worth 
studying should be read twice, the first time in order 
to test its appeal to one’s personal palate, and the 
second, with a critical, analytical eye, in order to 
master for oneself the use of those established lit¬ 
erary devices which produce certain stock effects. 
Cap’en Jollyfax’s Gun should be read first as a story, 
secondly in conjunction with the marginal notes. A 
dozen stories dissected in this manner for one’s pri¬ 
vate benefit will yield rich results. Particularly will 
valuable light be thrown on constructional devices, 
such as 66 key sentences.” A word of warning is 
necessary to the young writer who makes use of this 
exercise; remember, that very often an important 
effect is obtained not by what is put into a story, but 
by what is left out. 


153 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

CAP’EN JOLLYFAX’S GUN.* 


By Arthur Morrison 

The fame of Cap’en Jollyfax’s gun 
spread wide over Thames mouth and 
the coasts thereabout, in the years 
before and after the middle of the 
nineteenth century. The gun was no 
such important thing to look at, being 
a little brass cannon short of a yard 
long, standing in a neat little circle 
of crushed cockle-shell, with a border 
of nicely-matched flints, by the side 
of Cap’en Jollyfax’s white flagstaff, 
before Cap’en Jollyfax’s blue front 
door, on the green ridge that backed 
the marshes and overlooked the sea. 
But, small as Cap’en Jollyfax’s gun 
might be to look at, it was most amaz¬ 
ingly large to hear; perhaps not so 
deep and thunderous as loud and 
angry, with a ringing bang that seemed 
to tear the ear drums. 

Cap’en Jollyfax fired the gun at 
midnight on Christmas Eve, to start 
the carollers. Again he fired it at 
midnight between the old year and the 
new, to welcome the year; on the 
ninth of January, because that was 
the anniversary of Nelson’s funeral, 

154 


Period and set¬ 
ting. 

Effective di¬ 
rect description. 
“Nicely matched” 
a clue to Cap’en 
Jollyfax’s charac¬ 
ter. The gun — 
really the cen¬ 
tral figure of 
the story — is 
brought first to 
the reader’s no¬ 
tice. 


Key sentence 
“A.” {See “B” 
later.) 


Information pre¬ 
paring the reader 
for the main 
plot incident. 


* Included in Green Ginger. 


A Short Story Analyzed 


and on the twenty-eighth, because that 
was the date of the battle of Aliwal, 
then a recent victory. He fired it on 
the Queen’s birthday, on Waterloo 
Day, Trafalgar Day, St. Clement’s 
Day — for Clement was the parish 
saint — and on the anniversary of the 
battle of the Nile; and on the fifth of 
November he fired it at intervals all 
day long, and as fast as he could clean 
and load it after dark. He also fired 
it on his own birthday, on Roboshobery 
Dove’s, Sam Prentice’s, old Tom 
Blyth’s, and any other casual birthday 
he might hear of. He fired it in com¬ 
memoration of every victory reported 
during the Crimean War and the 
Indian Mutiny, he fired it to celebrate 
all weddings, some christenings, and 
once when they hanged a man at 
Springfield gaol. 

Cap’en Jollyfax was a retired master 
mariner of lusty girth and wide, 
brilliant countenance. In the intervals 
between the discharges of his gun, he 
painted his cottage, his flagstaff, his 
garden fence and gate, and any other 
thing that was his on which paint 
would stay, except the gun, which he 
kept neatly scoured and polished. 

He painted the flagstaff white, the 
fence green, and the cottage in several 

155 


Note “ weaving 
in 99 of minor 
characters. 


A not of humor 
in the final sen¬ 
tence of the 
paragraph. 

Character. 


Suggestion of 

indefatigable 

industry. 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


colors; and the abiding mystery of 
Cap’en Jollyfax’s establishment was 
what ultimately became of the paint. 
For a new coat succeeded the last very 
soon after the surface was sufficiently 
dry, and the consumption of paint was 
vast; and yet the flagstaff never 
seemed to grow much thicker, nor did 
the fence, as a reasonable person would 
expect, develop into a continuous wall 
of paint, supported within by a timber 
skeleton. 

Cap’en Jollyfax was a popular man 
on the whole, though perhaps more 
particularly so with boys, because of 
his gun. They would congregate about 
the fence to watch him clean it and 
load it, and the happiest of all boys 
was the one who chanced to be nearest 
when it was fired, and whose ear was 
loudest assailed by the rending bang 
that was so delightful to every boy’s 
senses. Boys dreamed at night of 
some impossible adventure by the issue 
whereof the happy dreamer was ac¬ 
corded the reward of permission to fire 
Cap’en Jollyfax’s gun; and one boy at 
least formed a dark project of hoarding 
pennies, buying powder, escaping by 
perilous descent from his bedroom 
window, and firing Cap’en Jollyfax’s 
gun lawlessly in the depth of night. 

156 


Further sugges¬ 
tion of charac¬ 
ter, with humor¬ 
ous development. 


Key paragraph 
“C.” (See “D” 
later.) 


Developing 

incident. 


A Short Story Analyzed 


But if the gun enhanced Cap’en 
Jollyfax’s popularity among the boys, 
its tendency was otherway with the 
women — those in particular who lived 
near enough to be startled by its 
noise. The natural feminine distrust 
of all guns in all circumstances was 
increased in the case of a brass cannon, 
which might go off at any moment of 
Cap’en Jollyfax’s crowded calendar. 
And it was asserted that Mrs. Billing, 
the widow, who lived at the hill-foot, 
exactly under Cap’en Jollyfax’s line 
of fire, had been startled into the 
destruction of three basins and a large 
dish within one month of many birth¬ 
days. Mrs. Billing indeed, as was to 
be expected from her situation, was the 
brass gun’s chief enemy. Consequently, 
if Cap’en Jollyfax had dragged his gun 
up the aisle of Leigh Church and fired 
it under the pulpit, he could scarcely 
have startled the parishioners more 
than did the rector when he first 
read the banns of marriage between 
John Jollyfax, bachelor, and Mary 
Ann Billing, widow, both of that 
parish. 

Except for the gun, there need have 
been little to startle Leigh, for Cap’en 
Jollyfax was none so old, as retired 
skippers went thereabouts, and Mrs. 

157 


Foundation for 
main crisis. 


Introduction of 
leading character. 
Note skillful 
“ weaving in." 


Preparation for 
main crisis. 


First minor 
crisis and plot 
incident. 


Life-simulating 

description. 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


Billing was as neat and pleasant a 
widow of forty-two as might be found in 
Essex, where the widows have always 
been admirable. Moreover, she had no 
incumbrance in the way of children. 

But there was no mistaking the fact 
now, even for the deaf who were not at 
church. For the succeeding fortnight 
and a day or two over, Cap’en Jolly- 
fax and Mrs. Billing were visible, day 
by day, and arm-in-arm from shop to 
shop, in Leigh High Street. The 
result was no great advance in the re¬ 
tail commerce of Leigh — in fact, none. 
The household appointments of both 
Cap’en Jollyfax and Mrs. Billing were 
fairly complete in their humble way; 
and when Mrs. Billing had triumphantly 
hauled Cap’en Jollyfax into an iron¬ 
monger’s in pursuit of a certain fish- 
kettle or a particular fender, she was 
certain presently to discover that just 
such an article embellished Cap’en 
Jollyfax’s kitchen, or her own. Never¬ 
theless, she persevered, for a bout of 
shopping was the proper preliminary 
to any respectable wedding, and must 
be performed with full pomp and cir¬ 
cumstance; and if nothing, or very 
little, was actually bought, so much the 
cheaper. Mrs. Billing was resolved 
to be balked of no single circum- 
158 


Beginning of 
suspense. 


Note the human 
touch here. 


Local color. 


' A Short Story Analyzed 


stance of distinction and triumph 
appertaining to the occasion. And 
Cap’en Jollyfax was mightily relieved 
to find so much shopping cost so little 
after all; so that he grew gradually 
more cheerful as the wedding day 
neared, which is said not to be in¬ 
variably the case in these circum¬ 
stances. 

The wedding was fixed for the 
morning of a certain Wednesday, and 
on the evening before the day, Mrs. 
Billing spent some little time in 
glorious authority on Cap’en Jolly- 
fax’s premises, superintending the 
labor of Mrs. Packwood, who did 
charing, and was now employed to 
make the domestic arrangements of 
the place suit the fancies of its coming 
mistress. Flushed with hours of un¬ 
disputed command, Mrs. Billing 
emerged in the little garden, where- 
unto Cap’en Jollyfax had retreated 
early in the operations; and there 
perceived tomorrow’s bridegroom in 
the act of withdrawing a broom 
stick from the mouth of the brass 
gun. 

“ What ha’ you been a-doing to 
that gun, John?” demanded Mrs. 
Billing, rather peremptorily, eyeing the 
weapon askant. 


Sly humor. 


“ in glorious au¬ 
thority ” — note 
original turn of 
phrase. 


Plot incident. 


Character. 


159 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


“ A-giving her a rub up inside an’ 
out,” answered Cap’en Jollyfax plac¬ 
ably. “ An’ I’ve just rammed her 
with a good big charge ready for to¬ 
morrow.” 

“Why for tomorrow?” Mrs. Bill¬ 
ing’s voice was a trifle sharper still, 
and she turned a fresh glance of 
unmistakable dislike on the gun. 

“Why for tomorrow?” Cap’en 
Jollyfax repeated wonderingly. “ Why 
weddin’ day, o’ course. Touch her 
off when we come home from church.” 

“ Nothin’ o’ the sort.” She spoke 
now with a positive snap. “ A nasty 
dangerous banging thing as frightens 
people out o’ their seven senses. I 
won’t hev it. Why, ’twere almost 
more’n I could stand down there 
at the bottom o’ the hill, an’ hev that 
thing go off near me I will not, so 
there.” 

Cap’en Jollyfax stared blankly. 
“What!” he jerked out, scarce be¬ 
lieving his ears, “ not fire the gun on 
the weddin’ day?” 

“ No,” Mrs. Billing replied emphati¬ 
cally, “ nor any other day, neither. 
Folk’ud think you were a little boy, 
a-playing with sich toys; an’ I can’t 
abear to be near the thing.” 

The staring wonder faded gradually 

160 


Note compression 
in the adverb 
“placably.” Note 
the dialogue 
struggle for mas¬ 
tery, arousing 
reader’s interest. 
(The late intro¬ 
duction of dia¬ 
logue indicates 
the opening of 
the main action .) 


Beginning of 
main crisis 
“B.” (See Key 
sentence “A”) 


Note restraint in 
use of dialogue. 


A Short Story Analyzed 


from Cap’en Jollyfax’s face, and a 
certain extra redness succeeded it. 
“ I be goin’ to fire my own gun on my 
weddin’ day,” he said firmly. 

“You ben’t nothin’ o’ the sort,” 
rejoined the widow, no less firmly; 
“ not on my weddin’ day. Nayther 
then nor after, if I’m your wife. Just 
you take the charge out o’ that gun.” 

Cap’en Jollyfax shook his head, with 
something like triumph in his eye. 
“ Won’t come out ’cept you fire it,” he 
said. “ That’s the onny way.” 

“ Very well then, fire it now — not 
now, but as soon as I be gone. Fire 
off your gun for the last time tonight, 
and be done with such foolishness.” 

“ Ben’t nothin’ to fire it for today,” 
the old sailor returned shortly. “ This 
gun’s my department, an’ I’m goin’ 
to ’tend to it. I’m goin’ to put the 
tarpaulin over it now, an’ tomorrow, 
Polly, when we’re back from church, 
I’m goin’ to fire it.” 

Mrs. Billing bridled. “You’re a-goin’ 
to fire that gun before I go to church 
with ’ee, John Jollyfax, an’ not load 
it agin nayther.” 

“ I’m a-goin’ to fire this gun when 
we’re back from church, an’ afterwards 
when proper.” 

“ Cap’en Jollyfax, I ben’t goin’ to 

161 


Character 
{obstinacy ). 


Developing 
incident . 


Character again. 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


church with ’ee till after that gun be 
fired. So now you know. If you 
don’t fire it tonight you must fire it 
tomorrow before I turn a step toward 
church. That’s my word on it.” 

“ I’m a-goin to fire my gun when I 
like,” growled Cap’en Jollyfax, dogged 
and sulky. 

“Very well,” replied the widow, 
tossing her head and turning away, 
“ then if you want me to wed ’ee, 
an’ when you want me to wed ’ee, 
you’ll fire it first. Then, maybe, I’ll 
consider of it. But no wife o’ yours 
I’ll be till that powder be fired off. 
An’ so good-evenin’ to ’ee, Cap’en 
Jollyfax.” 

That was the beginning of a period 
of vast interest and excitement in 
Leigh and its neighborhood. Cap’en 
Jollyfax’s gun remained silent all that 
night, nor was it fired in the morning. 

What Mrs. Billing’s feelings were in 
the matter, whether she sat anxiously 
listening for the sound of the gun, as 
some averred, or dismissed the whole 
subject from her mind, as her subse¬ 
quent conversation with Mrs. Peck 
suggested, are secrets I cannot pretend 
to have penetrated. Cap’en Jollyfax, 
on his part, consulted deeply in the 
morning with Roboshobery Dove, and 

162 


End of main 
crisis. 

Suspense. 


A Short Story Analyzed 


evolved a scheme of strategy suited 
to the physical features of the place. 
Cap’en Jollyfax, in his best blue coat 
with brass buttons and his very 
shiniest hard glazed hat, approached 
the churchyard and took his seat, in 
a non-committal sort of way, on 
the low stone wall that bounded it, 
with his back toward the church. 
Roboshobery Dove crouched behind 
a corner of the same wall, vastly in¬ 
convenienced by his wooden leg, hut 
steadily directing his telescope down¬ 
hill, so that it bore exactly on the 
door of Mrs. Billing’s cottage. It was 
Roboshobery’s duty, as look-out man, 
to report instantly if Mrs. Billing were 
seen emerging from the door with her 
best bonnet on, in which event Cap’en 
Jollyfax would at once leave the wall 
and take up his position at the church 
door to receive her. Failing that, 
Cap’en Jollyfax would be spared the 
ignominy of waiting at the church 
for a bride who never came. 

At intervals Cap’en Jollyfax took 
his pipe from his mouth and roared: 
“Look-out, ahoy!” 

“Aye, aye, sir!” came the un¬ 
varying reply. 

“ Hev’ee sighted?” 

“Nothin’ but the door!” 


Plot incident. 


Note “ telescope ” 
— not field- 
glasses. 


Character. 


Dialogue “ in 
character ” 

( nautical ). 


163 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


Whereat the watch would resume 
for ten minutes more. 

It was three-quarters of an hour 
past the time fixed, when the rector, 
himself very punctual, came angrily to 
the church door, surveyed the small 
crowd which had gathered, and be¬ 
came aware of Cap’en Jollyfax’s 
strategy. 

“What’s the meaning of this?” 
he demanded of Mrs. Peck, who, in 
fact, was spying in the interests of the 
opposite party. “ Where’s Mrs. Bill- 
ing?” 

“ Mrs. Billing, sir, she say she’ll 
never think o’ cornin’ till Cap’en Jolly- 
fax hev fired the gun.” 

The rector stared at Mrs. Peck for 
fifteen seconds, passed his fingers once 
backward and once forward through 
his hair, and then without a word 
retired to the vestry. 

Roboshobery Dove maintained his 
watch, and the little crowd waited 
patiently till the shadow of the dial 
over the church porch lay well past 
twelve o’clock, and the legal time for 
a wedding was over. Then Cap’en 
Jollyfax hauled out his silver watch 
and roared, though Roboshobery Dove 
was scarce a dozen yards off: “ Look¬ 
out, ahoy!” 


Admirable com¬ 
pression here , 

“who . . . oppo¬ 
site party." 


Intensifies 
main crisis. 


Plot incident. 


164 


A Short Story Analyzed 


“Aye, aye, sir!” 

“ Eight bells.” 

With that, Roboshobery Dove 
hauled out his own watch, banged it, as 
usual, on the socket of his wooden leg, 
clapped it against his ear, and then held 
it before his eyes. Finally, having re¬ 
stored the watch to his breeches- 
pocket, he shut the telescope, stood 
erect and rejoined his principal; and 
the two old sailors stumped off 
solemnly towards Cap’en Jollyfax’s 
cottage. All that day Cap’en Jolly- 
fax’s gun remained silent, and all the 
next. The day after that was June 
the first, on which date Cap’en Jolly- 
fax had been wont to fire the gun 
in celebration of Howe’s victory. 
But this time the Glorious First went 
unhonored, and it was perceived 
that Cap’en Jollyfax was mighty 
stubborn. Monday, the fourth, was 
Sam Prentice’s birthday, but Cap’en 
Jollyfax’s gun stood dumb still. 

Leigh had never before listened so 
eagerly for a bang as it listened now 
for the report that should publish the 
submission of Cap’en Jollyfax; but 
still the report did not come. People 
took sides, and bets were made. It 
was observed that Cap’en Jollyfax 
was grown peevish and morose, that 
165 


Plot incident . 


Plot incident. 


Note compres¬ 
sion “ should 

publish ... 
Cap’en Jolly¬ 
fax.r 


Character sug¬ 
gested. 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


he shunned his friends and moped at 
home. 

Mrs. Billing, on the other hand, 
went abroad as always, gay and smil¬ 
ing as ever. Cap’en Jollyfax might 
do as he pleased, said Mrs. Billing, but 
she wasn’t going to marry him while 
the charge remained in that gun. If 
he chose to fire it out — well, she might 
think the matter over again, but she 
was none so sure of even that, now. 

The days went on, and Cap’en 
Jollyfax’s friends grew concerned for 
him. He was obstinate enough, but 
brooding it was plain. Robosho- 
bery Dove, with much ingenuity, 
sought to convince him that by per¬ 
sisting in his determination he was 
defeating himself, since there was 
now an end of gun-fire altogether. 
Cap’en Jollyfax thought a little over 
that aspect of the case, but did not 
fire the gun. It was thought, however, 
that he could scarce hold out much 
longer. He was said to have been 
seen one afternoon stealthily rubbing 
over the gun and renewing the prime. 

A fortnight went, and with June the 
eighteenth, everybody expected to see 
an end of the business; for in truth, 
Waterloo Day would have made the 
best excuse of the year. But for the 
166 


Summarizing 
main crisis. 

Feminine touch . 


Action continues . 


Neat disposal of 
a point which 
would occur to 
an intelligent 
reader. 


To camouflage 
climax; a legiti¬ 
mate device to 
put the reader 
off the scent. 


A Short Story Analyzed 


first time since Cap’en Jollyfax came 
to the cottage, Waterloo Day passed 
unsaluted. People wondered and 
shook their heads; surely it couldn’t 
last much longer? 

And indeed it did not. There was 
another silent day, and then in the 
dead of night of the nineteenth, Leigh 
was startled once more by the bang of 
Cap’en Jollyfax’s gun. Louder and 
sharper than ever it rang in the still 
of the night, and folk jumped upright 
in their beds at the shock. 

Heads pushed out from latticed 
casements in Leigh High Street, and 
conversation passed between opposite 
gables. 

“ Did ’ee hear? ’Twere up at 
Cap’en Jollyfax’s!” 

“Hear? I’d think so! Cap’en 
Jollyfax hev fired the gun!” 

And so word passed all through 
Leigh and about on the moment, 
within house and out of window. 
“Cap’en Jollyfax hev fired the gun! 
Cap’en Jollyfax hev fired the gun!” 

But, in fact, no sleeper in all Leigh 
bounced higher in his bed than Cap’en 
Jollyfax himself; and that for good 
reason, for the gun was almost under 
his bedroom window. 


Suspense. 


Action accele¬ 
rated. 

Plot incident and 
third (minor) 

crisis. 


Short sentences 
expressive of ex¬ 
citement. 


Emphasis. 

Accelerated 

action. 


167 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


The gun! It was the gun! Some¬ 
body had fired it! Those boys — 
those rascal boys — rapscallion boys, 
cheeky boys, plaguey boys, villainous, 
accursed, infernal boys! 

Cap’en Jollyfax fell into a pair of 
trousers and downstairs in one com¬ 
plicated gymnastic, and burst into the 
garden under the thin light of a 
clouded moon. There stood the gun, 
uncovered, and there by its side lay 
the tarpaulin — no, not the tarpaulin, 
it would seem — but a human figure; 
a woman in a swoon. 

Cap’en Jollyfax turned her over 
and stared close down into her face. 

“Why!” he cried, “Polly! Polly! 
What’s this?” 

With that her eyes opened. “ Be 
that you, John?” she said. “ I 
den’t count ’twould go off that fearful 
sudden!” 


“D” (See Key 
paragraph “ C.”) 
Real denoue¬ 
ment camou¬ 
flaged. 

Nearing climax 
(setting “ under 
the thin light of 
a clouded 
moon”). 


CLIMAX 


Rapid denoue¬ 
ment and ad¬ 
mirable compres¬ 
sion into one 
neatly rounded- 
off humorous 
conclusion. 

All further ex¬ 
planation super¬ 
fluous. 


168 


CHAPTER IX 


THE COMMERCIAL SIDE 

Nearly all the published stories are the work 
of outside contributors. The free-lance who turns 
his attention to fiction has every prospect of 
success, provided his work is good enough. Editors 
have no interest in rejecting MSS. They welcome 
acceptable stories. It is a common delusion that the 
editor 64 rejects ” automatically the work of unknown 
writers. Influence (which in journalism as in all 
other walks of life is, I admit, invaluable) may here 
and there just weigh the scale in favor of a 44 doubt¬ 
ful ” story, and will often secure a quicker verdict 
on a MS., but generally speaking stories are judged 
absolutely on their merits. In fact, a good story by 
an unknown writer is sometimes doubly welcome, 
because usual rates of payment apply. Editors get 
tired of paying inflated prices for 44 big ” names. 

Inappropriately submitted MSS. cause a vast 
waste of everyone’s time and trouble. Common sense 
in submitting MSS. is most uncommon. Stories are 
hastily written and typed out, and submitted in 
feverish haste to the first magazine that suggests 
itself. This is, of course, hopelessly wrong. It is 
169 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


true that certain short stories are sufficiently typical 
to be submitted to any one of a dozen magazines, but 
a little care and reflection would do much to indicate 
the most likely markets. 

Having produced your story, it is a good plan to 
make up a list of the magazines and papers in the 
order determined by the likelihood of acceptance. I 
admit this is a difficult job for the inexperienced 
writer, but a careful analysis of the magazines month 
by month is well worth the trouble involved, and 
saves a tremendous amount of time and disappoint¬ 
ment incurred through sending MSS. to magazines 
for which they are totally unsuitable. 

The practical side of authorship should receive 
earnest attention from all who are anxious to suc¬ 
ceed in getting their work into print. 

The Preparation of the Manuscript 

Nothing annoys an editor more than an untidy, 
dirty or illegible MS. After all, he is human and the 
sight of a carelessly submitted MS. is bound to preju¬ 
dice him unfavorably. No effort should be spared to 
create as favorable an atmosphere as possible by sub¬ 
mitting MSS. which conform to a high standard of 
neatness and cleanliness. It may seem absurd to 
refer to dirty MSS., but day after day soiled and 
grimy documents make their shabby bow on the 
170 


The Commercial Side 


editorial desk, hoping to be “ considered favorably.” 
It is no compliment to the writer’s personal habits, 
the only alternative explanation being that he hopes 
the editor won’t notice that the story has been through 
every other editor’s hands before coming to him — 
which is worse. 

MSS. should be typewritten — double-spaced and 
on one side of the paper only. No editor likes to 
read handwriting, however legible it may be. If 
typewriting is absolutely out of the question, then 
make as neat a job as possible of it, and briefly 
explain in a covering note your reason for not having 
the MS. typewritten. But as a rule, the only satis¬ 
factory excuse for handwriting is lack of money. 
This is about the only serious outlay the writer has to 
make. Compared with other salesmen he is, in fact, 
in a very favorable position. His market is within 
reach of a postage stamp, and his stock-in-trade neces¬ 
sitates but a small outlay in actual cash — pen, ink, 
paper — and ideas. But at the first opportunity he 
should most decidedly invest in a typewriter. 

A well-typed MS. is the first step towards winning 
favorable consideration. Cheap and nasty typing is 
false economy. The size of the paper should be 
quarto, neither too thin nor too thick. Foolscap is not 
taboo, but quarto is to he preferred. The title page 
should contain the following details neatly set out: 

171 


Short Story Writing for Profit 
TITLE 

Author’s Name 

Author’s name and address (in bottom left-hand 
corner). 

The total number of words (in bottom right-hand 
corner). 

The pages should be numbered consecutively, 
and fastened by a clip or paper fastener in such a 
way as to assist convenient reading. Most typewrit¬ 
ing concerns bind the story in a stout cover with cord 
or ribbon; this is really the best way. 

A stamped addressed envelope should be enclosed. 
The stamps should be of sufficient value and the en¬ 
velope big enough to contain the MS. should it come 
back to roost. A covering letter is not really neces¬ 
sary, and if included should merely state briefly that 
you beg to offer the enclosed MS. (quote title, and 
nom de plume , if any). Don’t write an explanatory 
rigmarole, let your story speak for itself. Don’t 
inform the editor it is true to life or founded on fact, 
because he probably won’t believe you, and if he did, 
would almost certainly turn it down on sight. He 
wants Fiction, not Facts. (To a fiction editor, facts 
spell libel actions.) 

Don’t mention that it’s your first effort — that 
won’t improve your prospects. 

172 


The Commercial Side 


Don’t tell the editor you are starving and if he 
doesn’t accept your story you will commit suicide; 
he isn’t interested. Don’t tell him how much you 
enjoy his magazine; you’re a salesman now, not a 
flattering reader. 

Don’t insist on an immediate decision; that’s the 
way to put the editorial back up. If you have pub¬ 
lished work to your credit there is no harm in men¬ 
tioning it, but don’t overload the letter with details of 
your accomplishments. Your story will be judged on 
its merits. 

Address the MS. to 66 The Editor.” Don’t try and 
find out his name; if he doesn’t know you he may 
resent it. 

If possible, avoid folding the MS., especially if it 
is of a considerable length; pack it flat, never roll it. 

Don’t call on the editor unless you are actually 
negotiating with him. A personal interview — even 
if you obtain one — will not further the cause of 
your MS. But if an editor writes expressing interest 
in your work and inviting you to call, don’t hesitate 
to do so, for he may be able to give you some val¬ 
uable advice, and an indication perhaps of the kind 
of work he wants. 

If an editor accepts one of your stories, don’t 
immediately bombard him with everything you have 
ever written. 


173 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

Never write long letters to editors. They have 
a lot of work to get through. In fact, most amateurs 
do not realize what an enormous amount of money 
is spent annually in the form of editorial time in 
reading unsolicited MSS. Supposing magazines 
charged a small fee for reading every story sub¬ 
mitted! And yet in one way it would be quite rea¬ 
sonable to do so; every MS. you submit costs them 
money. Yet so anxious are editors to obtain good 
66 stuff ” that they cheerfully wade daily through a 
huge pile of MSS. in the hope of discovering one or 
two that are suitable material for their pages. 

Don’t ask for a personal criticism of your story. 
Editors are too busy to tell you what is wrong with it, 
and it is no part of their function to instruct 
beginners. 

Never submit the same MS. to more than one maga¬ 
zine at the same time. This is not 66 cricket.” Be¬ 
sides, you are in an awkward position if by any 
chance both accept it. 

Don’t be impatient for a decision; editors hate 
being worried. Allow a reasonable time to elapse, 
say three weeks or even longer. Then, if you must, 
write a brief polite note, mentioning the date on 
which the MS. was submitted, and venturing to ask 
his decision. 

If your MS. comes back — and at first they 
174 


The Commercial Side 


usually do — don’t write the editor a sarcastic or 
plaintive letter—he won’t read it. Send it some¬ 
where else. If the MS. begins to look worn or travel- 
stained, replace the title-page with a fresh one. 

Always keep a note of where you have sent your 
MSS., and the dates; if you have a large number out 
it is advisable to keep a card index. 

If the story gets mislaid or lost, don’t write threat¬ 
ening litigation; the editor is probably covered by a 
published warning that he cannot hold himself 
responsible for the safety of MSS. In your own 
interest, keep a copy of your stories. 

Don’t send a story to a magazine or periodical with 
which you are not familiar. It is sheer waste of 
time submitting the kind of story which is alien to 
the general spirit of the magazine. As a rule, the 
editor of a fiction magazine aims at catering for all 
tastes by publishing every month a variety of stories. 
Therefore examine the proportion of love stories, 
adventure stories, sea stories, nature stories, etc., 
which appear in the pages of the different magazines, 
and decide which hold out the best prospects for the 
MS. in question. Don’t send a sentimental love story 
to the Black Mask; nor a tale of the wild and woolly 
west to Snappy Stories , unless, of course, it has a 
strong love interest. 

Don’t accuse the harassed editor of not reading 
175 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


your MS. An old lady once tried to catch an editor 
out by sticking down the comers of two pages of the 
story. When she got the story back they were still 
stuck down. Triumphant, she wrote and pointed out 
that her story could never have been properly read. 
The editor replied: 

“ Dear Madam, 

“ If you will separate the two pages in ques¬ 
tion, you will find that I have taken the liberty of 
pencilling my initials in the corner.” 

Don’t submit your MSS. indiscriminately. Study 
your market carefully. One magazine’s meat is 
another’s poison. 

Make a list of magazines or papers in the order 
of “ probability ” and send the MS. to each in turn. 

Don’t submit Christmas ghost stories in June, nor 
in December; the right time is about August, when the 
October magazines are going to press. Similarly, 
baseball and tennis stories should be sent in March 
or April. 

If you are a raw recruit, be content to accept ordi¬ 
nary rates of payment. If a magazine makes you an 
offer for a story, work out how much it is per thou¬ 
sand words, and if it is not less than $15.00 per 
thousand, accept it. In order to get into print, it is 
sometimes expedient to accept less from the cheaper 
176 


The Commercial Side 


weekly fiction papers. But a magazine of any stand¬ 
ing ought to pay at least $15.00 per thousand. 
The majority pay more. No reputable magazine will 
publish a story without payment to the author. 
Remember, in the interests of writers generally, that 
64 a thing that’s worth printing is worth paying for.” 

It is generally understood that the offer of a MS. 
to an American magazine comprises the first Ameri¬ 
can Serial Rights only. If, however, you get a good 
offer for the copyright of a story, accept it. Dispos¬ 
ing of the first American Serial Rights only leaves 
you free to negotiate the British and foreign rights, 
dramatic and film rights. The American market is, 
of course, much superior to the English. Prices rule 
very much higher. Twenty pounds is a good price 
for an English magazine to pay for a story of ordi¬ 
nary length — say four thousand words — in the 
American market the same story may fetch five hun¬ 
dred dollars or more. $1,000 is not a big price for a 
short story; Irvin S. Cobb is paid $2,500 for nearly 
every story he writes! But the beginner should not 
neglect the English magazines; provided stories are 
not too American in outlook and expression, English 
editors are keen to buy from America. The Ameri¬ 
can standard is generally higher than the British, 
and as a rule only the 44 big ” English names — 
Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, Rafael Sabatini, 
177 


Short Story Writing for Profit 

Stacy Aumonier, Cosmo Hamilton, Sir Philip Gibbs, 
W. J. Locke, Robert Hichens — are featured in the 
best American magazines. 

The question of illustrations seldom affects the 
author. The editor buys the story and sends it to 
the artist for illustration. The writer has no say in the 
matter. Sometimes author and artist will collaborate 
and submit their joint efforts; but this is very unusual, 
and the plan is certainly not recommended to un¬ 
known writers. It is interfering with the editor’s 
province. 

Why not a literary agent? The majority of suc¬ 
cessful authors dispose of their work through agents. 
The plan has several advantages; by leaving the busi¬ 
ness side to an agent the author is free to concentrate 
on his output without the harassing and depressing 
interruption of rejection slips; many writers, too, 
feel that they are incapable of handling the business 
side. Again, it is probably true that agents secure 
better terms than the writer can himself. In the case 
of comparatively unknown authors, the agent’s 
imprint (if it is a reputable one) will often secure a 
prompt reading, and perhaps even a more favorable 
consideration than if the MS. came direct from the 
author. The agent claims to specialize in editorial 
requirements, and by keeping in daily touch with the 
different markets to know more accurately than the 
178 


The Commercial Side 


writer what the state of the market is, what types of 
story are in demand, what magazines are 64 full up,” 
and so on. On the whole, the literary agent system 
is a sound one, and the service rendered is well worth 
the fees charged. The agent’s commission naturally 
varies, but ten to fifteen per cent on prices accepted 
(subject to the approval of the author) is usual. 

The number of reputable agents is not large, and 
the young writer should be warned against dealings 
with so-called literary agents who invite aspiring 
authors to send them MSS. and then offer to dispose 
of their work provided they pay substantial 44 reading 
fees.” In the first place, no reputable agents will 
handle a writer’s work unless they are satisfied that it 
is of a sufficiently high standard. Some agents make 
a nominal charge to read and criticize if necessary 
the work of a writer unknown to them, but this charge 
is always a nominal one. The leading literary agents 
will not undertake to handle work that in their judg¬ 
ment is unlikely to find a market. 

As a general rule, it is not advisable for the begin¬ 
ner to worry about an agent. There is plenty of time 
for that when he begins to climb the literary ladder, 
and the business side becomes an important question. 
Not until a dozen or so stories have been published 
should the writer — in average circumstances — 
approach an agent. 


179 


Short Story Writing for Profit 


A final word. Let no young writer be discouraged 
by rejection slips. In the first three years of his 
literary career, W. L. George collected 723! 

As Ernest Raymond, author of Tell England and 
Damascus Gate , has said: 

66 There is only one message to the literary aspir¬ 
ant, and it is, 6 Forge on through a sea of rejection 
slips, and you will get there in the morning’! It may 
take three years, it may take six; and it may take 
nine, but if you don’t arrive with drums on the ninth, 
you’ll arrive with thunder in the tenth. 

64 1 opened my bombardment when I was about 
seventeen years old: and the blasted Hindenburg 
Line didn’t fall till I was thirty-two. The outer sys¬ 
tem to be carried was a literary agent of high stand¬ 
ing; he succumbed in due course. From this vantage 
point we bombarded the publishers for over a year; 
and, at last, that tough and sombre system fell. Then 
the publishers turned their heavy artillery on the 
public, and the last defences went up in smoke. 
Thereafter, naught remained but to walk in and pos¬ 
sess the promised land. And it’s a land worth fight¬ 
ing for: many of its paths are plenteousness, and all 
its ways are joy.” 


180 
























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